UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT   LOS  ANGELES 


till  n'wrtiiniiii  I  •  ■ '■ 

THOMPSON,  Joseph  Parrish,  scholar,  1).  in 
Philadelphia,  Pa.,  7  Aug.,  181!);  d.  in  Berlin, 
•Germany,  20  Sept.,  1879.  lie  was  graduated  at 
Yale  in  1838,  studied  theology  for  a  few  months  in 
Andover  seminary,  and  then  at  Yale  from  1839  till 
1840,  when  he  was  ordained  as  a  Congregational 
minister.  He  was  pastor  of  the  Chapel  street 
church  in  New  Haven  from  that  time  till  1845, 
and  during  this  period  was  one  of  the  founders  of 
the  "  New  Englander."  From  1845  till  his  resig- 
nation in  1871  he  had  charge  of  the  Broadway 
1  tabernacle  in  New  York  city.  Dr.  Thompson  de- 
voted much  time  to  the  study  of  Egyptology,  in 
I  -which  he  attained  high  rank.  In  1852-'3  he  visited 
Palestine,  Egypt,  and  other  eastern  countries,  and 
from  that  time  he  published  continual  contribu- 
tions to  this  branch  of  learning  in  periodicals,  the 
transactions  of  societies,  and  cyclopaedias.  He 
lectured  on  Egyptology  in  Andover  seminary  in 
1871,  and  in  187'Vr'9  rt»widq,d  in  Berlin,  Germany, 
occupied  in  oriental  studies,  took  an  active  part  in 
the  social,  political,  and  scientific  discussions,  and 
was  a  member  of  various  foreign  societies,  before 
which  he  delivered  addresses,  and  contributed  es- 
says to  their  publications.  These  have  been  issued 
under  the  title  of  "  American-Xkmiuieiit?  on  P^uro- 
pean  Questions"  (New  York,  1884).  In  1875  Dr. 
Thompson  went  to  England  to  explain  at  public 
meetings  "  the  attitude  of  Geriuiatty  iiv-cegard  to 
Ultramontanism,"  for  which  service  he  was  re- 
warded by  the  thanks  of  thejienuan^overnment, 
expressed  in  person  by  Prince  Bismarck,  and  Dr. 
Thompson  originated  the  plan  of  the  Albany  Con- 
gregationalist  convention  in  1852,  and  was  a  mana- 
ger of  the  American  Congregational  union  and  the 
American  home  missionary  society.  He  also  aided 
in  establishing  the  New  Y"ork  "Independent." 
Harvard  gave  him  the  degree  of  D.  D?  in  1856, 
and  the  University  of  New  York  that  of  LL.  D. 
in  1868.  He  published  "Memoir  of  Timothy 
Dwight "  (New  Haven,  1844) ;  "  Lectures  to  Young 
Men  "  (New  York,  1846) :  "  Hints  to  Emplovers  " 
(1847) ;  "  Memoir  of  David  Hale  "  (1850) ;  "  Foster 
-on  Missions,  with  a  Preliminary  Essay"  (1850); 
"  Stray  Meditations "  (1852 ;  revised  ed.,  entitled 
"  The  Believer's  Refuge,"  1857) ;  "  The  Invaluable 
Possession"  (1856):  "Egvpt,  Past  and  Present" 
-(Boston,  1856):  "The  Early  Witnesses"  (1857); 
"  Memoir  of  Rev.  David  T.  Stoddard  "  (New  York, 
1858);  "The  Christian  Graces"  (1859);  "The  Col- 
lege as  a  Religious  Institution "  (1859) ;  "  Love 
And  Penalty"  (1860);  "Bryant  Gray"  (1863); 
"  Christianity  and  Emancipation  "  (1863) ;  "  The 
Holv  Comforter"  (1866);  *"" Han  in  Genesis  and 
■Geoiogv  "  (1869) ;  "  Theology  of  Christ,  from  His 
Own  Words"  (1870);  "Home  Worship"  (1871); 
"  Church  and  State  in  the  United  States  "  (1874) ; 
"Jesus  of  Nazareth:  His  Life,  for  the  Y'^oung " 
(1875);  "The  Unitedistates  g^s  a  Nation," 'lectures 
(1877);    and  "The  Workman:   his  False  Friends 


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From 

MRS.  J.  P.  THOMPSON, 

55  Hillhouse  Avenue, 

CM:^  HAVllN.  CONN. 


c 


AMERICAN  COMMENTS  ON  EUROPEAN 

QUESTIONS,  INTEENATIONAL 

AND  RELIGIOUS 


mr 


JOSEPH  P.  THOMPSON 

FORMERLY  OF  NEW  YORK,  AND  AFTERWARD  OF  BERLIN 


BOSTON 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

New  York  :  11  East  Seventeenth  Street 

Cl&e  Riterpite  ^re?"^,  <jramiirilifle 

1884 


CopjTlgrht,  1884. 
Bt  Mrs.  K.  Q.  TUOMPSOK. 

AU  rights  ntervtd. 


Electrotj-pad  and  PrintAd  by  U.  0.  Houghton  &  Co. 


T^ja 


^dU 


^  EDITORIAL  NOTE. 

^  — ^ — 


s 

CO 


rn  1 

The  author  of  the  Essays  here  brongnt  together  re- 
'v;    sided   in  Berlin  from  the  time  when  his  health  broke 
^down  in  1871  until  his  death  in  1879.     In  leaving  New- 
York  he  had  expected  to  lead  the  life  of  a  scholar,  and  to 
prosecute  the  study  of  Egyptian  antiquities  in  their  rela- 
tion to  the  Bible,  amid  all  the  advantages  which  are  of- 
^    fered  in  the  libraries,  museums,  and  lecture-rooms  of  the 
OQ    German  capital.     But  his  dominant  interest  in  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  and  in  all  social  movements  which  in- 
^     volved  the  discussion  of  fundamental  principles,  forbade 
tt>     him   to  be  a  recluse ;  and  he  responded,  notwithstand- 
g    ing  the  prolonged  physical  sufferings  by  which  he  was 
hindered,  to  frequent   calls  for  speeches  and  essays  in 
,     different  countries  where  exciting  questions  were  under 
3     discussion,  and  where  he  believed  that  the  voice  of  an 
r>     American  familiar  with  European  affairs  might  help  on 
**     the   deliberations   of    the   friends   of    human    progress. 
f:      IVIany  of  his  addresses  were  widely  distributed  in  differ- 
^      ent   languages.     Some  of   them  have  permanent  value. 
In  this  belief,  they  are  offered  to  those  who  love  and 
honor  the  name  of  a  fearless,  eloquent,  and  enlightened 


453 361 


VI  PREFACE. 

advocate  of  Christian  liberty  in  Church  and  State.  In 
addition  to  the  addresses  several  essays  are  here  given, 
in  which  the  author  shows  his  high  estimate  of  scientific 
researches,  while  he  steadily  upholds  the  doctrines  of 
the  Christian  faith. 


CONTENTS. 


FAOE 

I.    The  Drift  op  Ecropb,  Christian  and  Social    .        .  1 

II.    Paparciiy  and  Nationality 33 

III.  The  Armament  of  Germany 92 

IV.  The  Intercodrse  of  Christian  with  Non-Christian 

Peoples 104 

V.    Concerning  Treaties  as  Matter  of  the  Law  op  Na- 
tions    132 

VI.    On  International  Copyright 151 

VII.     The  Eight  of  War  Indemnity 168 

VIII.     Shall  England  side  with  Russia?     .        .        .        .  175 

IX.    What  is  Science? 186 

X.     What  is  ReTligion? 219 

XL    Christ,  the  Church,  and  the  Creed     ....  247 

XII.    Lucretius  or  Paul 257 

XIII.    Final  Cause;  A  Critique  of  the  Failure  of  Paley 

and  the  Fallacy  of  Hume 300 

Index 331 


COMMENTS  OF  AN  AMERICAN  ON  EURO- 
PEAN QUESTIONS. 


I. 

THE  DRIFT  OF   EUROPE,   CHRISTIAN  AND    SOCIAL.^ 
(From  the  Princeton  Review,  May,  1878.) 

The  stirring  events  at  Rome  and  Constantinople  in 
the  opening  of  the  current  year  set  loose  again  the 
tongues  of  the  Cumming  school  of  prophets,  —  which  had 
been  silent  since  1871,  —  and  the  "times"  of  Daniel,  the 
seals,  trumpets,  and  vials  of  the  Apocalypse,  the  beast 
and  the  false  prophet,  the  dragon  and  the  scarlet  woman, 
Babylon  and  Armageddon,  the  mystic  66Q,  were  for  the 
hundredth  time  paraded  as  witnesses  for  the  imminent 
destruction  of  the  world  by  the  second  advent  of  Christ. 
And,  indeed,  never  before  in  our  time  had  Christ's 
warning  of  the  coming  judgment  such  pregnant  signs 
as  in  these  days  of  widespread  commercial  depression 
and  bankruptcy,  of  war,  tumult,  and  suspicion ;  "  wars 
and  commotions,  nation  against  nation,  kingdom  against 
kingdom,  distress  of  ^lations  with  perplexity,  the  sea  and 
the  waves  roaring,  men's  hearts  failing  them  for  fear 
and  for  looking  after  those  things  which  are  coming  on 
the  earth."     But  the  Europe  which  has  survived  all  the 

1  Throughout  this  article,  the  term  Europe  is  used  exclusively  for 
the  European  continent;  Great  Britain,  with  its  insular  position  and 
distinctive  civilization,  being  left  out  of  account. 


2    THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

political  commotions  consequent  upon  the  French  Revo- 
lution, and  all  the  fortunes  of  war  from  Austerlitz  and 
Jena  to  Waterloo  and  Sedan  in  the  west,  and  from  Silis- 
tria  to  Sebastopol  and  to  Plevna  in  the  east,  and  that 
has  twice  survived  the  humiliation  of  the  papacy, — in 
the  enforced  captivity  of  Pius  VII.,  and  the  fictitious 
captivity  of  Pius  IX.,  —  is  not  easily  to  be  shaken  by 
forebodings  of  destruction  to  religion  or  the  state.  Events 
which  have  stirred  the  enthusiasm  of  prophecy  call  rather 
for  the  sober  judgment  of  philosophy. 

Through  all  the  changes  of  governments,  nations,  dy- 
nasties, institutions,  powers,  which  this  eventful  century 
has  brought  to  pass  in  Europe,  two  factors  have  remained 
constant,  —  the  Church  and  Civil  Society.  The  relations 
of  these  to  each  other ;  their  several  gains,  losses,  modifi- 
cations, conflicts ;  their  mutual  influences,  perils,  tenden- 
cies, hopes ;  and  the  general  drift  of  Europe,  Christian 
and  social  —  are  matter  of  profound  philosophic  thought, 
as  affecting  the  future  of  mankind.  Setting  aside  theo- 
ries and  prejudices,  we  shall  find  that  convulsions  which 
to  the  prophetic  pessimist  had  threatened  the  dissolution 
of  European  society,  and  the  end,  not  only  of  "  Anti- 
christ," but  of  the  Christian  dispensation  itself,  were  but 
the  throwing  down  of  the  scaffolding  behind  which 
Providence  had  been  shaping  a  new  moral  and  social 
order.  A  study  of  what  has  fallen  and  of  what  has 
arisen  in  the  place  of  this,  will  be  a  surer  guide  to  the 
future  of  society  and  religion  in  Europe  than  any  inter- 
pretation of  Biblical  prophecies  that  lacks  their  inspira- 
tion. 

To  the  philosophic  observer  the  most  telling  evidence 
of  the  advance  of  Europe  in  the  past  fifty  years  is  given 
in  the  disappearance  of  absolutism  and  the  rise  of  consti- 
tutional governments,  with  a  popular  element  more  or 
less   pronounced.      Absolutism   has   vanished   from    the 


RISE  OF  CONSTITUTIONAL   GOVERNMENT.        8 

map  of  Europe,  with  the  exception  of  Russia,  which  re- 
mains more  Asiastic  than  European.  In  the  Congress  of 
Vienna  (1815),  which  attempted  to  adjust  the  map  of 
Europe  to  the  "  balance  of  power,"  Great  Britain  was 
the  only  one  of  the  great  powers  which  could  with  any 
propriety  be  said  to  give  the  people  a  voice  in  the  gov- 
ernment ;  and  even  in  Great  Britain,  at  that  period, 
popular  representation  in  parliament  was  very  limited. 
Austria,  Prussia,  and  Russia  were  absolute  governments. 
France  had  indeed  the  form  of  a  constitution  —  as  with 
various  fluctuations  she  had  had  since  1791.^  But  the 
term  "  constitution,"  as  used  on  the  continent  of  Europe 
during  the  reaction  which  followed  the  Napoleonic  wars, 
should  not  be  taken  as  synonymous  with  an  active  repre- 
sentative government  of  the  people.  On  the  4th  June, 
1814,  Louis  XVIII.  had  promulgated  his  Charte  Consti- 
tutionelle  ;  but  this  constitution,  by  the  restrictions  upon 
suffrage,  conceded  the  franchise  to  only  80,000  in  a  popu- 
lation of  30,000,000  ;  and  these  could  vote  only  for  elec- 
toral colleges  which  chose  the  deputies  to  the  Chamber ; 
and  the  presidents  of  these  colleges  were  appointed  by 
the  king.  The  peers  and  the  judges  were  created  by  the 
king,  and  could  be  removed  only  by  his  will.  In  the 
short  interval  before  the  return  of  Napoleon  from  Elba, 
the  king  had  already  shown  himself  as  absolute  a  Bour- 
bon as  if  no  charter  had  existed. 

Of  the  three  smaller  powers  represented  in  the  Con- 
gress of  Vienna,  Sweden  had  had  a  diet  since  1809;  but 
the  government  was  largely  vested  in  the  king  and  the 
council  of  state.  In  Spain  the  Cortes  had  proclaimed  a 
liberal  constitution  in   March,   1812.     But   almost  the 

^  See  the  Constitutions  of  14th  September,  1791,  24th  June,  1793, 
22(1  August,  1795,  13th  December,  1799,  and  the  Senatus-consulte  of 
the  18th  May,  1804.  Prussia  received  a  constitution  in  January, 
1850;  Austria,  her  "  Fundamental  Law  "  in  December,  1867. 


4    THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

first  act  of  Ferdinand  VII.,  in  resuming  the  throne,  was 
to  promulgate  a  decree  (May  4,  1814)  abolishing  the 
Cortes  and  all  their  acts ;  and  soon  after  the  constitution 
was  publicly  burned.  Portugal,  the  eighth  of  the  powers 
which  sat  at  Vienna  as  'the  arbiters  of  Europe,  did  not 
have  the  form  of  a  constitution  till  1826. 

Among  the  continental  powers  in  that  memorable 
Congress  of  1815  —  which  marks  the  beginning  of  the 
European  cycle  now  just  closed  —  the  secondary  power 
of  Sweden  was  the  only  one  which  had  a  constitutional 
government  representing  the  interests  of  the  people.  In 
the  proposed  congress  at  Berlin  in  1878,  for  the  readjust- 
ment of  the  Eastern  Question,  every  power  to  be  repre- 
sented, Turkey  included,  is  a  constitutional  government, 
with  the  solitary  exception  of  Russia.  In  that  fact  lies 
the  politi'cal  progress  of  Europe  from  Waterloo  to  Plevna. 
That  one  fact  chronicles  the  revolutions  of  France  from 
kingdom  to  kingdom,  to  republic,  to  empire,  to  commune, 
to  republic  ;  the  vicissitudes  of  Spain  under  dynasties, 
domestic  and  foreign,  republican  manifestoes  and  civil 
war  ;  the  emancipation  of  Italy,  and  her  unification  in 
Kome  through  the  overthrow  of  the  temporal  power  of 
the  Pope  ;  the  insurrections  of  1848  in  Germ,any ;  the 
abortive  insurrection  of  Hungary  ;  and  the  subsequent 
humiliation  of  Austria,  and  her  reconstruction  after  Ko- 
niggriitz.  That  fact  is  the  biography  of  Stein,  of  Thiers, 
of  Prim,  of  Cavour,  of  Deak,  of  Bismarck.  Much  more  is 
it  the  chronicle  of  Mazzini  and  Kossuth,  of  Victor  Hugo 
and  Karl  Blind,  and  of  the  thousands  of  nameless  pa- 
triots who,  in  the  struggle  for  popular  freedom,  suffered 
in  the  dungeons  of  Florence,  Rome,  Naples,  Venice,  and 
the  fortresses  of  Austria,  Germany,  and  France,  or  toiled 
in  exile  in  England  and  America  —  some  of  whom  are 
now  honored  in  the  parliaments  of  Versailles,  Buda-Pesth, 
Rome,  Berlin,  though  to  most  liberty  came  only  with 


VANISHING   CLAIM  OF  "DIVINE  RIGHT."  5 

death.  Forty  years  ago  Silvio  Pellico's  story  of  his  im- 
prisonment moved  the  civilized  world  to  horror  of  Aus- 
trian despotism  in  Lombardy.  Even  in  Spain,  so  famil- 
iar with  the  cruelties  of  political  and  clerical  absolutism, 
this  refinement  of  tyranny  was  spoken  of  with  a  shudder. 
To-day  both  Italy  and  Austria  are  free  to  develop  them- 
selves under  parliamentary  institutions,  and  the  name  of 
Silvio  Pellico  adorns  a  street  in  the  heart  of  Milan, 
adjoining  the  grand  "  Gallery  of  Victor  Emmanuel." 
When  in  1815  at  Paris  the  sovereigns  of  Russia,  Prus- 
sia, and  Austria  signed  that  memorable  convention,  the 
"  Holy  Alliance,"  by  which  they  declared  their  purpose 
of  governing  according  to  "  the  sublime  truths  taught  by 
the  eternal  religion  of  the  Holy  Saviour,"  they  spoke  of 
themselves  as  "  delegated  by  Providence  to  govern  three 
branches  of  the  same  family,  Austria,  Prussia,  and  Rus- 
sia," and  declared  that  "  looking  upon  themselves,  with 
regard  to  their  subjects  and  their  armies,  as  fathers  of  a 
family,  they  will  govern  them  in  that  spirit  of  brother- 
hood with  which  they  are  animated  for  the  protection  of 
religion,  peace,  and  justice." 

This  pompous  declamation  was  put  forth  after  the 
downfall  of  the  first  Napoleon,  when  "  legitimacy  "  was 
made  the  salvation  of  Europe.  Since  the  overthrow  of 
the  third  Napoleon  there  has  existed  an  unwritten  com- 
pact between  the  Emperors  of  Russia,  Germany,  and 
Austria,  providing  for-  a  certain  community  of  interest 
and  of  action  in  the  affairs  of  Europe  ;  yet  not  even  the 
Czar  of  all  the  Russias  would  have  the  audacity  to-day 
to  proclaim  himself,  in  the  ear  of  Europe,  the  vicegerent 
of  Providence  for  establishing  the  political  and  moral 
order  of  the  continent.  It  is  far  more  likely  that  the 
Czar  will  be  compelled  to  follow  the  Sultan  in  granting 
parliamentary  institutions  and  political  reforms.  He  is 
perhaps  even  more  sensitive  to  the  opinions  of  the  press 


6    THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

and  of  parties,  and  more  apprehensive  of  popular  demon- 
strations, than  are  the  sovereigns  of  constitutional  states. 
Come  what  may,  in  the  modification  of  civil  society  in 
Europe,  personal  absolutism  is  at  an  end,  from  the  Bay 
of  Biscay  to  the  Sea  of  Marmora.  Hereditary  sov- 
ereigns may  cling  to  the  fiction  of  "  divine  right,"  and, 
like  the  King  of  Prussia,  may  crown  themselves  in  token 
of  a  direct  commission  from  heaven  ;  a  usurper  may  take 
advantage  of  some  popular  commotion  to  install  a  des- 
potism ;  but  the  principle  of  constitutional  government 
and  popular  representation  are  too  deeply  planted  to  be 
displaced  by  any  personal  ruler,  however  cunning  or 
bold.  A  Louis  XIV.,  a  Frederick  the  Great,  a  Napo- 
leon Bonaparte,  is  no  longer  a  possibility  to  European 
society.  "  L'Etat  c'est  moi^^^  is  as  obsolete  as  the  fa- 
mous bull  "  Unam  sanctam,^*  which  declared  that  "  every 
human  creature  is  subject  to  the  Roman  Pope,  and  that 
none  can  be  saved  who  doth  not  so  believe." 

It  would  be  a  rash  inference  from  the  repudiation  of 
absolutism,  that  society  in  Europe  is  tending  to  republi- 
canism. Outside  of  Switzerland  and  France  there  can 
hardly  be  said  to  be  in  any  country  of  Europe  a  strong 
popular  movement  toward  a  republic ;  and  in  France  it 
is  too  soon  to  determine  whether  the  republic  is  defin- 
itively established  by  the  national  will,  or  is  a  temporary 
expedient  between  the  rivalries  of  monarchical  and  im- 
perial factions.  Hitherto,  the  experience  of  republican- 
ism in  France  has  not  been  of  a  character  to  recommend 
the  republic  as  a  model  to  other  nations  of  Europe. 
And,  unhappily,  the  United  States  have  utterly  lost  in 
Europe  that  influence  for  republican  institutions  which 
was  so  potent  in  the  fi^rst  half  of  the  century.  A  costly 
civil  war,  heavy  taxation,  official  corruption,  high  prices, 
the  depression  of  industry  and  trade,  the  strifes  of  par- 
ties and  classes,  and,  worst  of  all,  a  weakness  for  evading 


VANTSUING  POWER  OF  THE  PAPACY.  7 

and  repudiating  debts,  have  estranged  the  liberals  of  Eu- 
rope from  the  American  republic,  and  have  dispelled  the 
illusion  of  the  common  people,  that  America  was  the 
paradise  of  the  workingman.  In  countries  which  have 
already  secured  general  suffrage,  a  popular  legislature, 
and  a  responsible  ministry,  the  liberals  would  have  little 
to  gain  by  substituting  for  the  orderly  succession  of  a 
constitutional  sovereign  the  quadrennial  strife  of  parties 
for  a  change  in  the  executive  head  of  the  government. 
Liberal  progress  must  lie  rather  in  the  reform  of  laws 
and  of  local  institutions,  than  in  substituting  the  name  of 
a  republic  for  the  reality  of  a  representative  government. 
And  as  for  the  masses,  who  are  chiefly  concerned  about 
wages  and  taxes,  the  social  democracy  they  crave  is  as 
far  removed  from  a  republic  as  is  republicanism  from  ab- 
solutism. The  one  point  made  sure,  —  the  displacement 
of  absolutism  by  popular  constitutional  government, — 
names  and  forms  are  of  secondary  consequence  to  the 
future  of  free  institutions  in  Europe. 

Now  that  absolutism  in  the  state  no  longer  blocks  the 
stream  of  progress,  the  drift  of  Europe  is  strongly  to- 
ward the  emancipation  of  civil  society  from  ecclesiasti- 
cal control.  Autocracy  had  always  in  the  papacy  either 
a  jealous  rival  or  a  vigorous  ally  ;  and  in  either  case  the 
effect  upon  popular  liberty  was  the  same.  If  the  papacy 
was  jealous  of  a  prince,  it  was  that  the  Pope  coveted  a 
more  absolute  power  over  prince  and  people ;  if  the  pa- 
pacy upheld  a  prince,  it  was  that  spiritual  despotism 
might  be  strengthened  through  political  absolutism.  An 
immediate  effect  of  the  abolition  of  the  temporal  power 
of  the  Pope  is  that  the  head  of  the  Roman  Church  no 
longer  takes  rank  with  sovereigns  in  discussing  and  de- 
termining the  political  affairs  of  Europe.  No  Catholic 
power,  even,  now  thinks  of  inviting  the  Pope  to  send  a 
legate  to  a  conference  upon  the  Eastern  Question,  nor  of 


8     THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

looking   to   Rome  for  advice,  much  less  for   authority, 
upon  any  question  of  a  political  character. 

To  an  absolute  sovereign  a  strong  alliance  with  the 
Pope  could  be  worth  an  array  for  keeping  his  people  in 
subjection ;  but  a  constitutional  sovereign  finds  it  more 
important  to  court  the  favor  of  his  people,  even  by  for- 
feiting the  good-will  of  the  papacy.  This  was  the  hon- 
est choice  of  Victor  Emmanuel,  and  the  nation  ratified 
it  by  a  homage  to  his  memory  never  exceeded  in  the 
obsequies  of  a  king.  Since  by  the  syllabus  and  the  as- 
sumption of  infallibility,  Pius  IX.  set  the  papacy  in  an- 
tagonism to  all  that  distinguishes  modern  society,  there 
has  been  a  marked  disposition,  even  in  Catholic  coun- 
tries, to  free  political  society  from  ecclesiastical  control. 
This  is  shown  in  measures  for  the  suppression  or  regula- 
tion of  monasteries  and  ecclesiastical  corporations,  for 
withdrawing  education  from  clerical  influence,  and  for 
bringing  the  church  under  allegiance  to  the  state.  The 
Italian  clings  to  the  church  of  his  fathers,  and  would  not 
have  this  shorn  of  its  glories ;  he  is  proud  of  the  papacy 
as  a  symbol  of  the  world-supremacy  of  Rome  ;  yet  he 
will  suffer  no  meddling  of  priests  in  politics,  and  no  dic- 
tation from  the  Vatican  to  the  Quirinal.  This  curtail- 
ment of  clerical  interference  in  political  affairs  is  not  due 
to  any  abatement  of  political  pretensions  on  the  part  of 
the  Catholic  hierarchy.  Indeed,  the  Vatican  Council 
enhanced  these  pretensions  to  a  degree  that  necessitated 
a  conflict  of  sovereignty  with  every  government  which 
would  have  its  own  authority  respected  by  its  subjects  ; 
and  the  proclamation  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope 
stripped  every  official  of  the  church  of  the  last  remnant 
of  personal  independence,  and  transformed  him  into  an 
agent  of  the  papal  will  for  subjecting  governments  and 
peoples.  To  the  state,  as  a  "  moral  person,"  bound  to 
follow  justice  and  right,  a  certain  ethical  guidance  from 


DECLINE  OF  PRIVILEGED  ORDERS.  9 

the  teachers  of  religion  is  normal  and  needful.  In  times 
of  national  peril  this  influence  has  been  most  salutary  in 
the  United  States ;  and  there  it  has  almost  always  been 
a  leading  power  for  freedom,  integrity,  and  humanity. 
So  long  as  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  shall  stand,  there 
■will  be  thousands  of  its  adherents  in  every  land  who  will 
blindly  obey  the  priest  in  politics  and  at  the  polls. 
Even  in  a  republic  this  is  one  of  the  perversities  of  free- 
dom itself.  But  clerical  control  in  political  affairs  is 
henceforth  doomed  in  Europe  by  the  same  causes  which 
have  banished  absolutism  from  the  state. 

The  relative  decline  of  privileged  orders  and  class  pre- 
rogatives in  the  scale  of  European  society,  if  less  marked, 
is  hardly  less  significant  than  the  overthrow  of  absolut- 
ism and  of  clerical  domination.  Princes  and  preroga- 
tives still  hold  their  place  in  books  of  heraldry  and  court 
calendars  ;  but  in  critical  times  it  is  the  word  of  a  minis- 
ter, the  vote  of  a  parliament,  the  result  of  an  election, 
that  Europe  waits  to  hear.  Peoples  are  more  than 
princes,  parties  than  potentates.  Since  the  French  Rev- 
olution leveled  all  social  distinctions,  the  attempt  has 
been  made  again  and  again  to  reinstate  in  France  an 
aristocracy  either  of  birth  as  under  the  monarchy,  or  of 
preferment  as  under  the  empire ;  but,  notwithstanding  a 
Frenchman's  innate  affection  for  a  title  or  a  bit  of  rib- 
bon, there  is  a  charm  in  the  motto  "  Liberty,  Equality, 
Fraternity,"  which  no  prerogative  can  lay.  Any  aris- 
tocracy that  may  be  built  up  in  France  can  be  but  a 
children's  card-house  against  the  popular  institution  of 
the  ballot-box.  In  Germany  the  cheapness  of  a  "  von  " 
has  long  been  matter  of  ridicule;  and  the  fortunes  of 
war  and  the  creation  of  the  empire  have  so  reduced  the 
number  of  petty  princes,  that  there  are  scarcely  enough 
of  these  remaining  to  supply  royal  families  "with  eligible 
suitors.     Two  of  this  class,  with  little  beyond  their  titles 


10    THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

to  recommend  tbem,  were  married  in  February  at  Ber- 
lin to  princesses  of  the  imperial  family.  The  occasion 
brought  together  the  aristocracy  of  Germany ;  and  the 
visible  splendors  of  the  festival,  the  popular  regard  for 
the  emperor  and  the  crown  prince,  and  the  amiable  qual- 
ities of  the  princesses,  drew  the  eyes  of  the  capital  and 
of  Germany  with  a  curious  sympathy  toward  this  royal 
spectacle ;  yet  all  the  while  people  were  thinking  and 
talking  of  what  Bismarck  should  say  the  next  day  in 
parliament  upon  the  Eastern  Question,  in  answer  to  an 
interpellation  by  the  orator  of  the  people.  The  princes 
serve  for  ornament  —  something  to  be  gazed  at ;  the 
parliament  is  looked  to  when  anything  is  to  be  done. 

In  the  struggle  of  the  sixteenth  century  with  the  pa- 
pacy, Luther  looked  to  princes  for  countenance  and  sup- 
port, and  it  was  the  league  of  princes  that  at  last  secured 
the  Reformation  to  Germany.  But  in  the  struggle  of 
to-day  with  Ultramontanism,  the  Emperor  of  Germany 
has  looked  not  to  a  confederation  of  princes  against 
Rome,  but  to  his  ministers  and  to  pai'liament.  The 
scales  are  turned.  Bureaucracy  and  patronage  in  Prus- 
sia are  yielding  to  direct  representation  and  local  auton- 
omy. In  Italy  rank  and  title  still  serve  to  tickle  the 
national  vanity  ;  but  the  spectre  of  the  republic  stands 
behind  the  aristocracy,  ready  to  advance  at  any  moment 
when  the  prerogative  of  birth  should  be  asserted  against 
the  rights  of  manhood.  Even  in  Spain  nobility  has  been 
cheapened  by  the  intrigues  of  factions,  and  in  Austria 
by  the  jealousy  of  Hungary.  Whatever  the  form  of 
society,  there  must  be  some  provision  for  the  natural 
love  of  distinction  and  display.  Democracies  are  not  ex- 
empt from  this  infirmity  of  human  nature.  But  Euro- 
pean society  has  already  reached  a  point  where  the  table 
of  affairs  is  provided  and  ordered  by  government^as  pur- 
veyor to  the  people,  though  sovereigns  and  princes  may 


TENDENCY  TOJVARD  NATIONAL   UNITY.  11 

be  retained  to  do  the  honors,  or  as  lay  figures  to  lend  a 
historic  costume  to  the  feast. 

This  brings  into  prominence  the  drift  of  European  so- 
ciety toward  national  unity.  As  the  map  of  Europe  was 
settled  by  the  Congress  of  Vienna  in  1815,  the  central 
belt  from  the  North  Sea  to  the  Mediterranean,  between 
the  seventh  and  the  twentieth  degrees  of  east  longitude, 
was  divided  into  forty-eight  distinct  sovereignties  for 
Germany  and  Italy  alone.  Of  these,  eight  belonged  to 
Italy  and  forty  to  Germany,  including  Austria.  Seven 
different  titles  of  sovereignty  were  represented  in  Ger- 
many: kaiser,  king,  elector,  grand  duke,  duke,  prince, 
landgrave,  and  city  ;  in  Italy,  king,  pope,  grand  duke, 
duke,  and  the  little  republic  of  San  Marino.  These 
divisions  gave  occasion  to  unhappy  domestic  rivalries  and 
contentions,  and  to  mischievous  foreign  alliances.  Ger- 
many and  Italy  were  always  open  to  invasion,  and  could 
at  any  time  be  made  the  battle-ground  of  Europe,  through 
the  alienation  of  petty  states  from  each  other,  and  the  im- 
possibility of  a  truly  national  sentiment  under  such  ter- 
ritorial and  political  restrictions.  Now  this  belt  is  occu- 
pied by  two  great  nations,  —  a  united  Germany,  a  united 
Italy,  —  each  based  upon  representative  institutions,  and 
pursuing  with  undivided  aim  its  own  industrial  and  po- 
litical development,  and  the  harmony  of  the  two  guaran- 
teeing the  peace  and  order  of  Europe.  In  Italy  the 
national  unity  is  simple  and  absolute.  There  is  a  single 
parliament  representing  the  whole  people,  and  all  minor 
sovereignties  have  disappeared  before  the  one  constitu- 
tional king.  In  Germany,  though  the  unity  of  the  peo- 
ple is  real  and  cordial,  finding  its  appropi'iate  expression 
through  the  "  Reichstag,"  yet  the  unity  of  the  empire  is 
a  bit  of  complicated  patchwork.  The  "  Bundesrath," 
which  has  both  an  initiative  and  a  determinative  voice 
upon  measures  of  parliament,  represent  twenty-five  local 


12   THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

sovereignties  ;  and  the  empire  embraces  four  kingdoms 
and  sundry  duchies  which  still  keep  up  their  own  interior 
administration.  But  the  centripetal  force  of  the  empire 
preponderates  more  and  more  year  by  year,  and  the  Ger- 
man people  have  become  a  nation  with  the  consciousness 
of  a  new  life  upon  their  own  soil  and  a  new  function  in 
the  politics  of  Europe.  At  the  same  time  the  humilia- 
tion of  France  through  personal  misrule  has  brought  out 
a  fresh  assertion  of  the  national  spirit,  which  is  the  most 
hopeful  sign  of  vitality  and  growth  which  France  has 
given  since  her  first  revolution.  This  rise  of  nationality 
in  Europe  marks  the  advance  of  the  people  from  subjec- 
tion to  sovereignty.  Political  Europe  is  no  longer  a 
group  of  sovereigns,  with  territories  and  subjects  as  ap- 
pendages to  their  rank  and  power ;  it  is  a  family  of  na- 
tions whose  organic  life  finds  expression  tiirough  the 
state.  Even  the  stringent  military  service  which  so  many 
states  now  exact  serves  as  a  badge  of  citizenship,  and 
enhances  the  life  of  the  nation  by  the  cost  of  its  defense. 
The  soldier's  calling,  which  by  turns  has  been  the  badge 
of  feudal  servitude,  of  despotic  rule,  of  mercenary  sub- 
jection, is  now  the  mark  of  national  unity  and  equality 
in  burdens  which  the  state  imposes  upon  itself  through 
the  forms  of  law,  and,  with  honest  though  mistaken  mo- 
tives, for  the  common  weal.  In  the  fact  that  war  is  no 
longer  the  game  of  princes  but  the  defense  of  nations, 
Europe  finds  hope  of  peace. 

That  we  have  not  sooner  introduced  popular  education 
as  a  token  of  progress  in  European  society  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  this  is  both  cause  and  effect ;  and  the  contrasts 
of  education  upon  the  continent  of  Europe  leave  one  in 
perplexity  as  to  how  far  public  education  has  stimulated 
political  and  social  progress,  and  how  far  this  progress, 
resulting  from  other  causes,  has  encouraged  public  edu- 
cation.    Americans  of  wide  reading  and  travel  no  longer 


POPULAR  EDUCATION  ADVANCING.  13 

harbor  the  illusion  —  once  the  stock  of  Fourth  of  July 
oratory  —  that  monarchs  fear  the  spread  of  intelligence 
among  their  subjects,  and  that  republics  alone  favor  the 
general  diffusion  of  knowledge.  But  so  long  as  politicians 
in  the  United  States  who  aspire  to  the  presidency  indulge 
in  such  idle  boasting,  it  is  worth  while  to  show  how  idle 
and  pernicious  it  is.  To-day  nearly  all  the  monarchies 
of  Europe  are  in  advance  of  the  United  States,  in  requir- 
ing that  every  district  within  their  dominions  shall  main- 
tain at  least  one  public  school,  and  in  making  the  attend- 
ance of  children  at  school  obligatory  up  to  a  certain  age, 
and  through  a  prescribed  course  of  study.^  The  cen- 
tury has  not  seen  a  sovereign  more  impregnated  with  the 
vice  of  absolutism,  more  averse  to  conceding  a  constitu- 
tional government,  more  set  in  the  notion  of  personal 
government  by  divine  right,  than  Frederick  William  III. 
of  Prussia.  He  was  one  of  the  signers,  if  not  the  framer, 
of  the  "Holy  Alliance"  —  one  of  the  famous  "three 
kings,"  who,  though  they  made  an  ostentation  of  laying 
their  crowns  at  the  feet  of  Christ,  were  far  from  approv- 
ing themselves  to  history  as  "  the  wise  men  "  of  their 
time.  But  after  the  bitter  humiliations  which  Prussia 
had  suffered  from  Napoleon,  Frederick  William  HI. 
looked  for  recovery  to  the  intellectual  elevation  of  the 
nation,  and  openly  said,  "  Though  we  have  lost  territory, 
power,  and  prestige,  still  we  must  strive  to  regain  what 
we  have  lost  by  acquiring  intellectual  and  moral  power  ; 
and,  therefore,  it  is  my  strong  desire  and  will  to  rehabil- 
itate the  nation  by  devoting  the  most  earnest  attention 
to  the  education  of  the  masses  of  my  people."     Univer- 

^  Attendance  upon  the  primary  school,  or  its  equivalent  in  pri- 
vate education,  is  compulsory  in  Prussia,  Austria,  Sweden,  Den- 
mark, Italy,  Spain,  and  Portugal.  Those  who  have  not  access  to 
the  school  laws  of  these  several  states  will  find  an  excellent  sum- 
mary in  the  Cydopccdia  of  Education,  by  Kiddle  and  Schem. 


14  THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

sal  and  obligatory  schooling  and  universal  and  obligatory 
military  service  have  made  Prussia  the  leader  of  Ger- 
many, and  Germany  the  arbiter  of  Europe.  The  theory 
that  the  citizen  exists  primarily  for  the  state,  and  there- 
fore the  state  must  see  to  it  that  he  is  duly  trained  for  all 
the  services  and  duties  which  the  government  may  exact 
of  him,  has  made  of  political  society  in  Prussia  an  intel- 
ligent machine,  highly  organized  and  wondrously  effect- 
ive, but  still  a  machine,  in  which  the  care  bestowed  upon 
each  particular  part  is  made  subservient  to  the  working 
of  the  whole.  The  introduction  of  parliamentary  institu- 
tions with  popular  suffrage,  within  the  past  thirty  years, 
has  given  a  new  impetus  to  the  education  of  the  m;isses 
in  Prussia,  by  enhancing  their  political  importance  ;  but 
it  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  theory  of  an  absolute 
sovereign  "  educating  the  masses  of  his  people  "  for  the 
service  of  the  state  wrought  out  a  more  thorough  and 
universal  system  of  popular  education  than  has  been  se- 
cured in  the  United  States  under  the  republican  theory 
of  the  personal  importance  of  the  individual  citizen. 

Another  popular  illusion  in  the  United  States  concern- 
ing education  is  worth  correcting  here,  — the  assumption 
that  education  is  the  one  panacea  for  the  evils  of  society, 
the  one  qualification  for  active  participation  in  govern- 
ment. Tliat  an  average  number  of  voters  can  be  more 
relied  upon  to  vote  intelligently  if  they  can  inform  them- 
selves by  reading  than  if  obliged  to  take  all  opinions  at 
second  hand  will  readily  be  granted ;  yet  the  intelligence 
of  a  voter  may  depend  quite  as  much  upon  what  he 
reads  as  upon  the  fact  that  he  can  read  at  all.  Hence 
there  was  little  to  be  hoped  for  from  general  public  edu- 
cation in  Austria,  when,  by  the  concordat  with  the  Pope 
in  1855,  the  whole  system  of  instruction  was  placed  un- 
der the  supervision  and  control  of  the  clergy  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church.     So,  if  the  "  workingman  "  in  the 


KNOWLEDGE  BRINGS  POLITICAL   VIGOR.         15 

United  States  reads  only  newspapers  and  pamphlets 
which  teach  that  capital  is  his  enemy,  that  a  division 
of  property  is  his  right,  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
state  to  provide  him  with  money,  land,  and  home ;  or 
if  the  "  granger  "  at  the  West  reads  only  that  banks, 
railways,  and  other  corporations  are  oppressors  of  the 
farmer,  and  that  government  is  bound  to  see  that  his 
produce  is  conveyed  to  market  at  rates  below  cost,  his 
loans  obtained  below  the  normal  rate  of  interest,  and  his 
debts  paid  in  a  "  legal  tender  "  below  par  ;  —  then  to 
what  extent  has  reading  made  him  an  intelligent  voter, 
or  lifted  him  above  the  Austrian  or  the  Spaniard  whose 
tuition  is  in  the  hands  of  his  priest  ?  But  though  we 
cannot  deify  education  as  the  "  savior  of  society,"  or 
find  an  exact  measure  of  the  intelligence  and  prosperity 
of  a  country  in  the  percentage  of  its  population  who  can 
read  and  write,  nevertheless  there  is  in  popular  education 
this  grand  element  of  hope  for  the  future  of  society :  that 
by  reading,  a  broad  free  avenue  is  opened  for  the  diffu- 
sion of  knowledge,  and  knowledge,  like  light  and  air, 
once  set  free,  diffuses  itself.  Hence  the  increase  of  pop- 
ular education  in  Europe  is  both  a  sign  and  a  promise  of 
the  renovation  of  political  society.  It  may  still  be  true 
in  Austria,  in  France,  in  Spain,  and  even  in  Italy,  that 
the  apathy  induced  by  long  periods  of  repression,  the 
stagnation  of  thought  and  inquiry  within  the  Catholic 
Church  by  dogma  and  authority,  and  the  limitations  im- 
posed upon  the  press  by  tyranny,  tradition,  or  timidity, 
have  caused  the  tangible  fruits  of  popular  education  to  fall 
below  the  legal  provision  made  for  it ;  yet  every  new  dis- 
closure of  the  popular  will,  and  notably  just  now  in 
France  and  Italy,  shows  that  knowledge  is  spreading  it- 
self by  its  own  light,  and  that  light  carries  health  and 
vigor  to  political  society. 

For  the  old  notion  that  ease  and  security  in  govern- 


16    THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

ment  demanded  that  the  people  should  be  kept  in  igno- 
rance has  succeeded  the  doctrine  that  the  enlightenment 
of  the  people  is  the  true  support  and  defense  of  the  state. 
Every  government  in  Europe  has  openly  declared  for 
popular  education  as  an  obligation  of  the  state  to  its  citi- 
zens. Even  the  government  of  Turkey  thirty  years  ago 
gave  official  encouragement  to  the  schools  of  the  various 
religious  communities  agglomerated  within  the  empire, 
and  in  1869  made  a  spasmodic  effort  to  establish  a  gen- 
eral school  system.  And  though  this,  like  so  many  re- 
forms in  Turkey,  has  hardly  gone  beyond  a  project  on 
paper,  the  bare  project  was  a  concession  to  the  principle 
of  popular  education  as  the  preserver  and  not  the  peril 
of  the  state.  And  Russia,  too,  within  the  last  decade, 
has  attempted  to  give  universality  to  that  system  of  pri- 
mary instruction  which  had  hitherto  prevailed  chiefly  in 
great  cities  and  in  favored  central  districts.  This  acces- 
sion of  the  Russian  government  to  the  promoters  of  pop- 
ular education  by  the  state  encourages  the  hope  that  the 
Czar  is  preparing  a  constitutional  government  for  his 
subjects  by  preparing  them  to  appreciate  and  administer 
a  representative  system. 

Leaving  Turkey  out  of  the  question,  with  the  exception 
of  Belgium,  France,  Holland,  and  Russia,  every  state  in 
Europe  now  makes  attendance  upon  the  primary  school 
—  or  its  equivalent  in  private  education  —  obligatory 
upon  all  children  within  a  fixed  term  of  years.  The  zeal 
of  Austria  for  general  education  was  quickened  by  the 
disaster  of  Koniggriitz,  which  led  to  the  reorganization 
of  the  empire,  of  the  military  system,  and  every  depart- 
ment of  the  public  service.  The  control  of  the  clergy 
over  the  public  schools  was  greatly  abated,  and  primary 
instruction  was  made  compulsory  between  the  ages  of  six 
and  fourteen.  In  Denmark,  the  compulsory  school  age 
is  from  seven  to  thirteen,  and  attendance  is  enforced  by 


COMPULSORY  EDUCATION.  17 

fines.  All  Germany  has  now  followed  the  example  of 
Prussia  in  making  the  school  obligatory.  In  Greece, 
school  attendance  is  obligatory  from  five  to  twelve ;  in 
Italy,  from  six  to  fourteen,  enforced  by  fine.  In  Portu- 
gal, "  every  year  the  study  commission  publishes  a  list  of 
all  children  of  school  age.  The  names  of  those  parents 
who  fail  to  have  their  children  registered  are  read  by  the 
minister  from  the  pulpit,  and  a  list  of  them  is  nailed  to  the 
church  door.  Upon  repeated  offenses,  fines  are  imposed. 
In  the  same  manner,  regular  attendance  is  enforced."  ^  In 
Spain,  Sweden,  and  Switzerland,  attendance  on  the  pri- 
mary school  is  compulsory  ;  and  the  Russian  government 
has  lately  applied  the  system  of  compulsory  attendance 
to  the  schools  of  St.  Petersburg  by  way  of  experiment. 

In  Italy,  the  transition  from  the  political  tyranny  of 
Bourbon,  Hapsburg,  and  Pope  to  the  constitutional  gov- 
ernment of  Victor  Emmanuel  has  been  so  recent  and  rapid 
that  the  system  of  compulsory  education  has  not  yet 
brought  forth  its  legitimate  results,  has  not  indeed  been 
thoroughly  set  in  order.  Recent  statistics  show  that  in 
Italy  there  are  in  the  schools  but  70  in  1,000  of  the  whole 
population,  whereas  in  Denmark  there  are  135  in  1.000, 
in  Germany  152,  and  in  Switzerland  155.  France,  which 
has  not  adopted  the  compulsory  system,  nevertheless  has 
at  school  131  in  1,000  of  her  population,  a  marvelous  in- 
crease since  forty-five  years  ago.  M.  Guizot  broached 
the  scheme  of  public  primary  schools  under  the  direction 
of  the  state.  There  are  now  in  France  upwards  of  50,000 
such  schools,  with  more  than  three  and  a  half  million 
scholars. 

In  those  countries  where  a  school  age  is  not  fixed  and 
made  obligatory  by  law,  it  is  made  obligatory  upon  com- 
munes, corresponding  to  a  school  district  in  New  England, 
to  establish  primary  schools  either  at  the  cost  of  local  tax- 

1  Kiddle  and  Schem,  Cyclopcedia. 
2 


18   THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

ation  or  by  grants  from  the  public  treasury.  And  thus 
everywhere  in  Europe  it  is  settled  that  the  education  of 
the  people  is  a  care  of  the  state,  and  a  primary  education 
is  brought  within  the  reach  of  all,  and  in  many  states 
enjoined  upon  all.  Thus,  with  absolutism  abolished,  cler- 
icalism curbed,  caste  and  privilege  curtailed,  and  edu- 
cation established,  the  cause  of  the  people  is  fast  being 
identified  with  European  society. 

Apart  from  schools,  the  democracy  of  Europe  have  had 
a  training  by  experience  which  has  both  enlightened  and 
sobered  them.  They  have  learned  that  society  cannot 
be  reconstructed  in  a  day ;  that,  while  political  equality 
may  be  secured  by  law,  social  equality  is  a  thing  impos- 
sible to  the  nature  of  man  ;  that  reform  is  better  than 
revolution ;  that  theories  of  socialism  and  pronuncia- 
mentos  of  democracy  cannot  avail  against  the  laws  of 
trade  and  of  labor  that  grow  out  of  the  wants  of  society, 
and  that  represent  not  organized  forces  to  be  controlled 
by  authority,  nor  the  collective  will  of  the  community  to 
be  determined  by  the  majority,  but  only  the  statistical 
agglomeration  of  myriads  of  individual  wills  ;  in  a  word, 
the  people  are  learning  that  liberty  is  a  growth  requiring 
time  and  care,  and  due  regard  to  soil  and  climate  and  sur- 
rounding conditions  ;  that  it  may  even  grow  best  around 
and  upon  the  whole  framework  of  society,  till  it  shall  be 
strong  enough  to  drop  this  and  stand  alone.  In  some 
conditions,  liberty  will  thrive  best  if  grafted  into  the  old 
stock,  drawing  from  this  a  vigor,  tone,  and  llavor  which 
one  could  not  hope  for  by  uprooting  the  old  and  planting 
anew. 

Such  is  the  better  part  of  the  education  which  the  de- 
mocracy of  Europe  have  been  learning  since  1848.  Few 
of  the  German  revolutionists  of  that  day  would  care  to 
change  the  present  order  of  things  in  Germany,  where 
progress  is  assured  under  law,  and  the  voice  of  the  people 


INDUSTRIAL  PROGRESS.  19 

is  becoming  more  potent  in  parliament.  Few  of  the  Ital- 
ian republicans  of  that  time  would  care  to  overthrow  the 
constitutional  monarchy,  if  this  shall  continue  to  be  ad- 
ministered in  the  good  faith  of  Victor  Emmanuel.  The 
Paris  commune  did  not  represent  the  true  democracy  of 
France ;  and  the  elections  of  1877  showed  how  the  peo- 
ple have  been  sobered  to  a  respect  for  order  as  the  guar- 
anty of  liberty.  Upon  such  a  basis  of  experience  popular 
education  may  erect  a  social  structure  that  shall  be  en- 
during. 

Parallel  with  the  liberation  of  political  society  and  the 
advance  of  popular  education,  the  continent  of  Europe 
has  witnessed  also  that  industrial  progress,  and  the  conse- 
quent equalization  of  opportunity  to  the  workingman, 
which  in  the  last  half  century  have  been  so  remarkable 
in  England  and  the  United  States.  This  enormous  ma- 
terial development  has  not  indeed  been  to  the  masses  of 
society  an  unmixed  good.  Later  on  we  shall  show  wherein 
the  material  civilization  which  the  nineteenth  century 
boasts  of  necessity  entails  upon  society  evils  hardly 
known  to  the  Middle  Ages.  Every  new  application  of 
science  to  the  arts  of  life,  every  new  invention  substitut- 
ing machinery  for  manual  labor,  must  bear  hard  upon 
classes  of  workmen  until  society  shall  have  increased  its 
demand  for  the  products  of  the  new  manufacture,  and  the 
workmen  shall  have  learned  to  earn  more  with  the  ma- 
chine than  they  once  earned  without  it,  or  shall  have 
taken  up  new  occupations  no  less  profitable  than  the  old. 
But  notwithstanding  these  drawbacks,  the  material  prog- 
ress of  modern  times  has  brought  its  most  substantial 
benefits  to  the  masses  of  society,  and  has  tended  espe- 
cially to  equalize  their  condition  in  respect  of  the  comforts 
of  life  and  of  opportunities  for  advancement.  With  in- 
dustry, prudence,  and  sobriety,  the  wages  of  the  working- 
man  enable  him  to  share  the  comforts  and  enjoyments 


20    THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

that  were  once  possible  only  to  the  rich ;  while  the  in- 
creased facilities  of  education,  travel,  and  other  means  of 
culture  raise  his  children  to  a  par  with  the  nobility  of 
former  times  in  the  means  of  personal  improvement. 
The  science  of  political  economy,  which  concerns  itself 
with  the  material  pi-osperity  of  the  nation,  and  seeks  to 
enhance  the  comforts  of  society  and  of  all  its  members,  is 
a  constant  witness  for  the  consideration  which  human  life 
has  attained  in  the  view  of  philosophy  and  of  the  state. 
The  abolition  of  slavery  and  serfdom ;  the  growth  of  co- 
operation and  arbitration  between  capital  and  labor ;  the 
care  of  legislation  for  health,  safety,  and  comfort  in  mines 
and  factories,  and  in  the  dwellings  of  laborers;  the  sensi- 
tiveness of  governments  to  taxing  the  necessaries  of  life 
or  laying  burdens  upon  the  common  people  ;  the  stupen- 
dous scale  upon  which  governments  and  people  encourage 
competitive  expositions  of  industry  and  trade  —  these  all 
show  tluit  labor,  much  more  than  the  man^  whom  labor 
represents,  has  come  to  a  position  of  influence,  and  even 
of  honor  in  society,  hardly  dreamed  of  a  century  ago. 
"Industrial  development"  and  "social  amelioration," 
once  the  watchwoi'ds  of  a  few  philanthropists  and  re- 
formers, are  now  incorporated  into  the  legislation  of  every 
civilized  people. 

That  astute  critic  of  society,  H.  Taine,  has  character- 
ized this  altered  state  of  things  in  bis  comparison  of  old 
Italy  with  the  new.^ 

"  Three  quarters  of  the  labor  of  humanity  is  now  done  by  ma- 
chinery, and  the  number  of  machines,  like  the  perfectibility  of 
processes,  is  constantly  increasing.  Manual  labor  diminishes  in 
the  same  ratio,  and  consequently  the  number  of  thinking  beings 
increases.  We  are  accordingly  exempt  from  the  scourge  which 
destroyed  the  Greek  and  Roman  world  —  that  is  to  say,  the  re- 
duciiuu  of  nine  tenths  of  the  human  race  to  the  condition  of 
^  Taine's  Italy :  Florence  and  Venice,  chap.  vi. 


TAINE  ON  MACHINERY.  21 

beasts  of  burden,  overtasked  and  perishing,  tlieir  destruction  or 
gradual  debasement  allowing  only  a  small  number  of  the  elite  in 
each  state  to  subsist.  Almost  all  of  the  republics  of  Greece,  and 
of  ancient  and  modern  Italy,  have  perished  for  want  of  citizens. 
At  the  present  day,  the  machinery  now  substituted  for  subjects 
and  slaves  prepares  multitudes  of  intelligent  beings. 

"  In  addition  to  this,  the  experimental  and  progressive  sci- 
ences, having  finally  embraced  in  their  domain  moral  and  politi- 
cal aflPairs,  and  daily  penetrating  into  education,  transform  the 
idea  entertained  by  men  of  society  and  of  life ;  from  a  militant 
brute  who  regards  others  as  prey  and  their  prosperity  a  danger, 
they  transform  him  into  a  pacific  being,  who  considers  others  as 
auxiliaries  and  their  prosperity  as  an  advantage.  Every  blade 
of  wheat  produced  and  every  yard  of  cloth  manufactured  in 
England  diminishes  so  much  the  more  the  price  I  pay  for  my 
wheat  and  for  my  cloth.  It  is  for  my  interest,  therefore,  not 
only  not  to  kill  the  Englishman  who  produces  the  wheat  or 
manufactures  the  cloth,  but  to  encourage  him  to  produce  and 
manufacture  twice  as  much  more. 

"  Never  has  human  civilization  encountered  similar  conditions. 
For  this  reason  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  civilization  now  exist- 
ing, more  solidly  based  than  others,  will  not  decay  and  melt 
away  like  the  civilizations  which  have  preceded  it."  ^ 

The  facts  thus  far  presented  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  political  society  in  Europe  is  already  beyond  the 
drifting  period,  and  has  reached  a  stable  if  not  a  finished 
state  of  order,  freedora,  and  equity ;  that  it  is  no  longer 
a  privileged  artificial  construction,  but  a  human  institu- 
tion reposing  upon  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people. 
With  constitutional  government,  parliamentary  repre- 
sentation, popular  suffrage,  religious  liberty,  universal 
education,   the    enfranchisement   of    labor,   equality   of 

1  This  does  not  hold  absolutely.  The  whole  civilized  world  is 
now  suffering  from  over-production,  and  of  course  work  and  wages 
decline  with  the  falling  off  in  demand.  Men  can  only  eat  and  wear 
so  much,  and  too  much  makes  waste  and  trouble.  Still,  the  drift  of 
M.  Taine's  argument  is  sound. 


22    THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

rights  and  of  opportunity  —  even  woman  having  an  un- 
impeded "right  to  labor,"  to  teach,  and  to  talk  —  what 
is  wanting  to  that  which  in  America  has  always  been 
held  up  as  the  ideal  of  democratic  society?  Alas  for 
that  ideal,  when  each  successive  step  towards  its  realiza- 
tion seems  to  put  farther  off  that  perfection  of  humanity 
which  social  theorists  had  promised  through  revolution 
and  reform  I  One  specific  after  another  has  been  admin- 
istered to  the  body  politic, — constitution,  parliament, 
education,  suffrage,  liberty,  have  all  been  tried,  —  yet 
the  pessimist  finds  only  symptoms  of  deterioration  that 
threaten  decay  and  dissolution.  That  European  society 
is  far  from  sound,  that  it  has  yet  chronic  evils  to  contend 
with,  and  occjisionally  exhibits  violent  and  alarming 
symptoms,  lies  upon  the  surface.  This  is  indeed  a  sign 
of  the  crisis  through  which  political  society  everywhere 
is  passing.  But  there  is  nothing  in  all  this  to  qualify 
the  view  that  the  general  drift  of  Europe  is  toward  a 
better  stjite  of  things,  social  and  Christian.  Some  of  the 
evils  which  remain,  formidable  as  they  are,  it  is  within 
the  power  of  society  itself  to  throw  off,  or  at  least  to 
hold  in  check,  bv  its  own  action.  Others  belong  to  the 
ineffaceable  elements  and  conditions  of  human  existence, 
and  these  society  can  but  hope  to  mitigate,  though  to 
keep  them  under  control  may  demand  an  incessant  war- 
fare for  its  own  life. 

It  is  a  great  advance  to  have  secured  freedom  of  con- 
science and  have  liberated  civil  society  from  priestly 
domination.  But  how  free  the  human  mind  from  that 
tendency  to  superstition,  that  love  of  religious  mystery, 
which  shows  itself  even  in  cultivated  circles  and  in  the 
most  enlightened  times  —  which,  for  instance,  for  the 
miracles  of  the  Middle  Ages  would  substitute  the  fanta- 
sies of  modern  spiritualism  ?  It  is  a  great  advance  to 
have  secured   freedom   of  scientific   thought  —  to   have 


SUPERSTITION  AND  SKEPTICISM.  23 

readied  an  age  in  which  Secchi,  as  Director  of  the  Ob- 
servatory of  the  Roman  College,  could  openly  teach,  as 
in  harmon}^  with  religion,  the  very  doctrines  of  nature 
for  which  Galileo  was  condemned.  But  with  this  tri- 
umph over  dogmatism  and  bigotry,  Jiow  to  deliver  the 
human  mind  from  that  skepticism  which,  in  its  reaction 
from  superstition,  is  a  tendency  hardly  less  fatal  to  the 
search  for  truth  ? 

Now,  these  two  tendencies,  superstition  and  skepti- 
cism, divide  in  almost  equal  proportions  the  masses  of 
European  society.  With  the  spread  of  general  intelli- 
gence in  the  community,  Roman  Catholicism  seems  to 
address  itself  more  and  more  boldly  to  the  element  of 
superstition  in  human  natui'e,  and  to  demand  of  its  ad- 
herents a  more  absolute  submission  of  reason  and  will  to 
dogma  and  priestcraft.  It  was  in  the  very  face  of  peo- 
ples who  were  thought  to  have  come  to  their  majority 
by  the  institution  of  constitutional  government  and  "popu- 
lar education,  that  the  first  ecumenical  council  since  the 
Reformation  —  heedless  of  the  progress  of  three  hundred 
years  —  put  forth  dogmas  more  arbitrary  and  absurd 
than  those  which  drove  Luther  to  revolt.  And  the  same 
pontificate  which  promulgated  the  immaculate  concep- 
tion of  the  Virgin,  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope,  and  put 
its  ban  upon  modern  society  and  the  state,  received  an 
unprecedented  homage  of  gifts  and  pilgrimages  from 
lands  reputed  to  be  free  and  enlightened,  and  witnessed 
also  the  revival  of  superstition  and  imposture  on  the  stu- 
pendous scale  of  the  pilgrimages  to  Lourdes,  La  Salette, 
and  Marpingen. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  infidelity  of  the  eighteenth 
centui'y  had  died  of  inanition,  as  all  purely  negative 
skepticism  must.  The  spirit  of  inquiry  cannot  long 
sustain  itself  upon  wwbelief.  In  some  lands  that  era  of 
infidelity  was  succeeded  by   an  earnest  revival  of  the 


24  Tin:  drift  of  Europe,  christian  and  social. 

reli'nous  spirit  under  various  forms  from  Methodism  to 
mysticism.  But  the  progress  of  physical  research  has 
revived  the  skeptical  tendency  in  the  form  of  material- 
ism. And  the  materialism  of  a  school  of  evolutionists  is 
more  dangerous  than  the  infidelity  of  the  Encyclope- 
dists, in  that  it  does  profess  to  meet  the  yearning  of  the 
human  spirit  for  the  Why  and  Wherefore  of  things,  and 
in  denying  a  personal  God  does  not  leave  the  universe  an 
utter  blank,  but  finds  in  Nature  enough  to  originate  and 
to  satisfy  beings  that  are  no  longer  conscious  and  ac- 
countable spirits,  but  agglomerated  and  dissolvable  mole- 
cules. A  most  ominous  tendency  in  European  society  is 
that  of  higher  minds  to  dissociate  philosophic  and  scien- 
tific thought,  and  of  common  minds  to  dissociate  social 
reform  from  religion,  as  something  quite  outside  alike  of 
the  intellectual  and  the  practical  in  human  life.  And 
this  calamity  is  heightened  by  the  absence  of  any  intelli- 
gent and  persuasive  religious  zeal,  whether  in  the  univer- 
sity, the  church,  or  the  family. 

With  such  indifferentism  in  the  mass  of  its  constitur 
ency,  Protestant  Christianity  is  feebly  aroused  against 
8Uj)erstition  and  materialism.  Now  that  the  Turk  is 
down,  tiiere  is  no  place  for  a  conflict  of  true  and  false  re- 
ligions, as  when  the  Teutonic  knights  subdued  the  pagan 
Prussians,  or  the  knights  of  Castile  and  Aragon  drove  out 
the  Moors  from  Spain.  Now  that  Protestantism  and 
Catholicism  have  settled  into  their  equalized  positions 
with  princes  and  peoples,  the  battle  of  the  Reformation, 
as  between  a  true  and  a  false  Christianity,  cannot  be  re- 
newed. Sects  find  too  little  encouragement,  either  from 
the  laws  or  from  the  tastes  and  habits  of  the  people,  to 
stir  the  zeal  of  denominational  propagandism  in  European 
swiety.  And  so  it  has  come  to  pass  that  Christianity, 
which  should  be  the  leader  of  society  in  ever-broadening 
lines  of  liglit,  liberty,  and  love,  seems  to  stand  apart  as  a 


RELIGIOUS  INDIFFERENCE.  25 

spectator  of  the  contest  between  superstition  and  materi- 
alism for  the  control  of  the  newly-emancipated  peoples. 

In  Germany,  it  may  be  hoped  that  this  indifferentism 
is  but  a  passing  phenomenon.  Till  within  a  few  years  the 
dogmas  and  usages  of  the  national  church  were  made  ob- 
ligatory in  domestic  and  official  relations,  and  even  en- 
forced by  the  police.  The  tyranny  of  ecclesiasticism  over 
opinion  engendered  in  the  hearts  of  multitudes  a  hatred 
of  the  church.  By  degrees  a  legal  emancipation  from 
forms  will  reconcile  many  to  the  faith.  At  bottom  there 
is  in  the  hearts  of  the  German  people  a  sentiment  of  re- 
ligion, which  often  shows  itself  in  contradiction  to  a  spec- 
ulative skepticism,  and  which  skeptics  themselves  allow, 
by  separating  faith  from  philosophy  and  making  religion 
purely  a  matter  of  feeling.  This  sentiment,  under  wise 
direction,  may  yet  be  set  in  action  against  the  current  of 
materialism. 

In  the  political  philosophy  of  De  Tocqueville,  there  is 
in  democracy  a  logical  tendency  to  pantheism.  This  he 
would  counteract  by  reviving  the  principle  of  authority 
as  this  is  impersonated  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 
Forty  years  ago,  in  reflecting  upon  the  relations  of  mod- 
ern society  to  religion,  he  had  the  sagacity  to  write  that 
"  our  posterity  [here  having  France  especially  in  view] 
will  tend  more  and  more  to  a  division  into  only  two  parts 
—  some  relinquishing  Christianity  entirely,  and  others  re- 
turning to  the  Church  of  Rome."  ^  Sooner,  perhaps, 
than  De  Tocqueville  anticipated,  ultramontanism  and 
materialism  have  seemed  to  verify  his  prediction.  Rely- 
ing upon  the  superstitious  element  in  human  nature,  ul- 
tramontanism works  the  machinery  of  democracy  for  the 
restoration  of  spiritual  despotism.  And  no  combination 
more  potent  for  the  destruction  of  liberty  could  be  de- 
vised than  the  infallibility  of  the  head  of  the  church 
1  Democracy  in  America,  vol.  ii.  book  i.  chap.  vi. 


26   THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

backed  by  a  plSbiscitum —  that  invention  of  Napoleon  for 
using  the  hands  of  the  democracy  to  forge  the  chains  of 
the  empire.  While  superstition  would  crush  society  from 
above,  materialism  would  explode  it  from  beneath.  The 
scientific  materialism  which  serves  the  evolutionist  as  a 
speculative  theory  of  the  universe  becomes  in  the  common 
mind  a  social  materialism  for  the  practice  of  life.  And 
such  materialism  is  not  only  hostile  to  this  or  that  insti- 
tution of  society,  but  would  reduce  society  itself  to  anar- 
chy by  taking  away  those  supreme  motives  without  which 
it  is  impossible  for  human  society  to  hold  together  —  re- 
sponsibility and  hope.  Without  responsibility  in  the  in- 
dividual and  in  the  whole,  responsibility  to  authority,  to 
law,  to  justice,  civil  society  is  an  impossibility  ;  and  the 
atomic  theory  of  man,  which  denies  personality  and  re- 
solves consciousness  and  conscience  into  mere  physical  or 
phenomenal  experiences,  leaves  no  place  for  responsi- 
bility. 

Without  hope,  which  is  essentially  a  moral  sentiment, 
society  would  stagnate,  and  man  revert  to  the  troglodytes 
from  which  the  evolutionists  would  have  us  believe  that 
he  sprang.  But  hope  is  impossible  to  a  mere  equation  of 
chemical  elements  subject  to  inexorable  piiysical  laws. 
To  some  extent,  superstition  and  materialism  will  coun- 
teract each  other  in  their  effects  upon  the  masses ;  but  the 
just-budding  liberty  of  Europe  will  be  crushed  between 
them,  unless  the  gospel  of  Christ  shall  intervene  with  its 
wise  and  benignant  authority  on  the  one  hand,  and  its 
large  and  loving  liberty  on  the  other. 

However  serious  may  be  the  perils  to  society  from  su- 
perstition and  materialism,  the  source  of  tliese  mischiefs 
lies  in  human  nature  ;  and  society,  in  its  organic  capacity, 
can  do  nothing  against  them  except  by  legal  restraints 
upon  imposture  and  fanatical  excesses,  and  by  a  wise 
combination  of  ethics  with  physics  in  the  training  of  the 


STANDING  ARMIES.  27 

public  scliools.  History  teaches  that  forms  of  supersti- 
tion and  skepticism  pass  away  with  time ;  and  tliough  we 
may  not  hope  to  eradicate  the  spirit  of  either  —  which, 
indeed,  at  bottom  is  one  and  the  same  —  we  may  be  con- 
fident that  each  succeeding  form  of  superstition,  each  re- 
curring phase  of  skepticism,  though  as  threatening  as  the 
giant  shadows  of  the  Alpine  mists,  will  melt  as  the  day 
advances,  or  vanish  when  we  cease  to  put  our  own  doubts 
and  fears  between  them  and  the  sun. 

But  there  is  one  peril  to  European  society  more  formid- 
able than  these,  which  society  has  imposed  upon  itself, 
and  now  liugs  in  the  delusion  that  its  safety  lies  in  this 
very  danger.  The  one  common  curse  and  woe  of  the 
leading  nations  of  Europe  is  the  military  system,  which 
maintains  enormous  standing  armies  and  holds  every  man 
directly  or  indirectly  to  duty  as  a  soldier.  In  every  great 
state,  the  army  on  a  peace  establishment  is  reckoned  by 
hundreds  of  thousands,  in  war  by  millions  ;  the  military 
appropriations  form  the  largest  item  of  the  yearly  budg- 
et ;  science  and  invention  are  taxed  for  the  production 
of  more  effective  implements  of  war  ;  agriculture,  indus- 
try, trade,  are  crippled  by  the  withdrawal  of  young  men 
in  their  prime  from  the  field,  the  factory,  the  shop,  to  the 
barrack  and  the  camp  ;  the  training  of  the  family  and  the 
school  must  be  surrendered  to  the  discipline  of  arms ;  and 
the  one  lesson  of  law  and  of  morals  drilled  into  every  man 
is  that  to  be  ready  to  fight  is  the  first  duty  of  the  citizen, 
and  to  make  every  man  fight  is  the  first  right  of  the 
state.i     Germany  set  the  example  of  universal  corapul- 

1  As  an  offset  to  this,  it  must  be  admitted  that  to  boorish  young  men, 
such  as  miners  and  field  hands,  the  army  serves  as  a  school  —  train- 
ing them  in  habits  of  cleanliness,  order,  obedience,  and  expanding 
their  knowledge  of  men  and  of  the  world.  And  it  must  further  be 
admitted  that  the  cost  of  suppressing  the  rebellion  in  the  United 
States,  through  the  lack  of  trained  and  efficient  troops  at  the  first, 


28    THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

sory  military  service,  and  Sadowa  and  Sedan  are  mem- 
orable witnesses  to  its  efficiency.  Germany  pleads  her 
geogi-apliical  position  as  the  necessity  for  adhering  to  this 
system,  and  for  maintaining  lier  large  standing  army. 
But  France  might  plead  her  geographical  position,  open 
to  invasion  from  Germany  and  England.  Italy  is  vul- 
nerable on  the  side  of  Austria  and  of  France ;  Austria  on 
the  side  of  Italy,  of  Germany,  and  now  of  Russia  or  her 
satellites  on  the  Lower  Danube.  Every  nation  uses  the 
argument  of  Germany  and  pleads  her  example.  Every 
nation  is  expending  more  and  more  upon  its  armament, 
and  is  increasing  its  public  debt.  Statesmen  are  at  their 
wits'  end  to  secure  a  revenue  without  aggravating  the 
people;  yet  none  dare  nor  will  propose  a  congress  for  mu- 
tual disarmament,  in  the  interest  of  national  prosperity 
and  of  international  peace.  But  unless  this  shall  be  ef- 
fected, then,  before  the  close  of  the  century,  Europe  will 
witness  one  of  three  things  —  universal  bankruptcy,  spo- 
i*adic  revolutions  against  taxes  and  conscription,  or  a  gen- 
eral war  to  relieve  popular  discontent,  give  occupation  to 
armies,  and  win  reprisals  for  filling  bankrupt  treasuries. 
Whichever  of  these  ways  society  shall  enter  upon,  the 
end  is  anarchy  or  despotism,  alike  the  ruin  of  free  insti- 
tutions. Mons.  P.  Broca,  in  reminding  the  French  sci- 
entists of  the  troglodytes  as  their  first  progenitors  in  the 
arts  of  life,  said :  "  Barbarous  no  doubt  they  were,  but 
are  not  we  also  barbarous  in  some  degree,  we  who  can 
only  settle  our  differences  on  the  battle-field.  They  were 
not  acquainted  with  electricity  or  steam,  they  had  neither 
metals  nor  gunpowder ;  but  wretched  as  they  were,  and 
with  only  weapons  of  stone,  they  carried  on  against  na- 
ture no  mean  struggle ;  and  the  progress  they  slowly  ef- 

exceeded  the  cost  of  a  standing  army  for  a  generation.  Still  a  largo 
standing  army  is  a  constant  burden  to  society,  a  temptation  to  war, 
and  a  danger  to  liberty. 


REPRESSION  OF  INDIVIDUALS.  29 

fected  with  such  efforts  prepared  tlie  soil  on  which  civil- 
ization WHS  hereafter  destined  to  flourish."^  But  the 
civilization  for  which  those  scarcely  human  beings  con- 
tended against  nature  now  employs  its  higliest  intellect- 
ual and  material  forces  in  fighting  against  man  I 

But  the  most  formidable  prospect  to  European  society 
is  the  tendency  of  democratic  civilization  to  crush  the  in- 
dividual in  the  effort  to  raise  the  masses.  The  Ameri- 
can doctrine  has  been,  Give  every  man  liberty,  education, 
and  the  opportunity  to  rise,  and  there  will  be  universal 
contentment  and  prosperity.  This  doctrine  seemed 
sound  and  sufiicient  so  long  as  there  was  plenty  of  land, 
plenty  of  work,  plenty  of  trade,  and  plenty  of  money. 
But  now  that  years  of  stringency  in  the  money  market 
and  the  labor  market  have  made  land  a  burden  and  trade 
a  loss  and  work  a  drudgery,  it  is  recognized  that  individ- 
ual freedom  and  universal  equality  do  not  create  a  para- 
dise. Worst  of  all,  the  equality  of  the  many  presses 
down  the  liberty  of  the  individual.  One  man  being  "  as 
good  as  another,"  each  man  finds  that  the  liberty  and 
equality  which  make  him  of  so  much  more  account  to 
himself  make  him  of  less  account  to  society.  He  is  but 
a  single  atom  among  millions  of  like  atoms,  and  his 
neighbors  have  no  scruple  about  jostling  him  out  of 
place  or  even  crushing  him  out  of  existence.  The  democ- 
racy which  made  its  chief  boast  the  emancipation  of  the 
individual  from  the  "  paternal  care  "  of  government,  and 
asked  only  freedom  for  every  man  to  make  his  own  way, 
now  turns  about  and  offers  to  surrender  all  individuality 
to  centralized  power  in  the  state,  invoking  government 
to  supply  work,  to  fix  its  hours  and  its  wages,  to  create 
trade  and  money,  to  furnish  capital  and  abolish  interest, 
and  instead  of  levying  taxes  to  pay  them  in  the  form  of 

1  Address  to  the  French  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  the 
Sciences,  at  the  Havre  Congress,  1877. 


80  THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

largesses.  Democracy  has  insisted  upon  the  right  of 
every  man  to  the  fruits  of  his  own  hibor,  enterprise, 
skill,  or  luck.  But  now  the  individual  who  has  laid  up 
capital  must  divide  with  the  many,  and  the  workingman 
is  no  longer  at  liberty  to  make  his  own  terms  for  hours 
and  wages,  but  shall  be  allowed  to  work  only  upon  such 
conditions  as  the  many  have  prescribed.  In  seeking  the 
elevation  of  the  masses,  democratic  civilization  has  in- 
cited vastly  more  aspirants  for  higher  places  than  it  can 
create  places  to  be  filled.  It  has  overlooked  the  un- 
changeable law  of  nature,  that  society  can  exist  only  on 
the  condition  of  subordinate  places  and  a  division  of 
classes.  No  legislation,  nor  education,  nor  combination 
can  alter  this  law.  Though  all  the  operatives  may  be 
equally  competent  to  run  the  factory,  there  is  room  for 
but  one  superintendent  at  a  time  ;  that  every  poor  man 
may  have  cheap  coal,  somebody  must  mine  it ;  if  cities 
are  to  be  kept  healthy,  somebody  must  sweep  the  streets. 
In  digging  away  old  institutions  in  order  to  "  level  up  " 
a  mound  upon  which  all  society  shall  stand  on  an  equal 
footing,  there  is  danger  of  digging  a  pit  into  which  many 
shall  fall  deeper  than  ever  before.  In  Europe  this  dan- 
ger is  greater  than  in  the  United  States. 

"  The  magnitude  of  states,  the  development  of  industry,  the 
organization  of  tlie  sciences,  in  consolidating  the  edifice,  prove 
detrimental  to  the  individuals  who  live  in  it,  every  man  finding 
himself  belittled  through  the  enormous  extension  of  the  system 
in  which  he  is  comprised.  Societies,  in  order  to  become  more 
stable,  have  become  too  large,  and  most  of  them,  in  order  the 
better  to  resist  foreign  attack,  have  too  greatly  subordinated 
themselves  to  their  governments. 

"  Moreover,  in  order  to  become  eflTicacious,  industry  has  be- 
come too  subdivided,  and  man,  transformed  into  a  drudge,  be- 
comes a  revolving  wheel.  It  is  sad  to  see  a  hundred  tliousand 
families  employing  their  arms  and  thirty  superior  men  expend- 


POPULAh   VIEW  OF  GOVERNMENT.  81 

ing  their  genius  in  efforts  to  increase  the  lustre  of  a  piece  of 
muslin. 

"  For  these  evils  there  are  palliatives,  perhaps,  but  no  reme- 
dies, for  they  are  produced  and  maintained  through  the  very 
structure  of  the  society,  of  the  industry,  and  of  the  science  upon 
which  we  live.  The  same  sap  produces  on  the  one  hand  the 
fruit,  and  on  the  other  the  poison  ;  whoever  desires  to  taste  one 
must  drink  the  other."  ^ 

The  miscliiefs  of  contemporary  civilization  in  depress- 
ing the  individual  by  attempting  to  raise  the  masses, 
and  in  spreading  discontent  by  fostering  expectations 
which  society  cannot  fulfill  and  the  realization  of  which 
would  render  civil  society  impossible,  are  more  serious 
and  imminent  in  Europe  than  in  America.  By  the  tra- 
dition of  centuries,  and  by  experiences  yet  fresh  in  the 
memory  of  the  present  generation,  the  masses  in  Europe 
impute  all  their  grievances  to  the  oppressions  of  govern- 
ment. Their  experiment  in  self-government  is  too  re- 
cent to  have  weaned  them  from  this  prejudice.  To  the 
workingman  in  Europe,  the  government  is  still  what  the 
rain-doctor  is  to  the  African  —  at  once  the  author  of  all 
mischiefs,  and  the  only  possible  deliverance  from  them. 
The  "  hard  times "  are  charged  upon  the  government, 
and  the  remedy  is  to  be  found  in  surrendering  all  power 
to  the  "  social  democrats."  This  feeling  is  aggravated  by 
the  ill-timed  attempts  of  governments  to  repress  social- 
istic discussion  by  force  of  the  police  —  a  course  which 
is  sure  to  provoke  a  day  of  reckoning.  It  will  be  long 
before  the  commonalty  of  Europe  outgrow  their  heredi- 
tary suspicion  of  the  officers  of  law  as  their  natural  ene- 
mies. For  evils  inherent  in  democratic  civilization  no 
remedy  has  been  found  by  any  political  philosopher, 
nor  even  by  any  lady  novelist  who  has  yet  appeared. 
Happily  in  the  United  States  there  is  yet  hope  that  all 

1  Taine's  Italy :  Florence  and  Venice,  book  iv.  chap.  vi. 


32   THE  DRIFT  OF  EUROPE,  CHRISTIAN  AND  SOCIAL. 

social  mischiefs  as  they  arise  will  be  palliated  by  the 
sober  second  thought  of  the  people,  and  by  a  speedy 
change  of  times.  But  in  Europe  every  social  evil  is 
made  more  formidable  by  the  attempt  to  organize  the 
masses  for  a  political  action  which  would  be  destructive 
of  society  itself,  as  communism  in  France  and  social  de- 
mocracy in  Germany.  In  the  last  resort,  society  must 
and  will  save  itself  from  anarchy  even  by  military  des- 
potism. The  United  States  may  yet  save  to  mankind 
the  principles  of  political  liberty  and  legal  equality  by 
demonstrating  that  these  do  not  deprive  a  people  of  com- 
mon sense  and  common  honesty. 


II. 

PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY.* 

(From  the  British  Quarterly  Review,  1875.) 

At  the  meeting  held  in  St.  James's  Hall,  London,  on 
the  27th  of  January,  1874,  it  was  resolved,  "  That  this 
meeting  unreservedly  acknowledges  it  to  be  the  duty 
and  right  of  nations  to  uphold  civil  and  religious  liberty, 
and  therefore  deeply  sympathizes  with  the  people  of 
Germany  in  their  determination  to  resist  the  policy  of 
the  ultramontane  portion  of  the  Church  of  Rome  ;  "  and 
at  the  responsive  meeting  held  in  the  Rath-Haus  at  Ber- 
lin, on  tlie  7th  of  February,  this  expression  of  sympathy 
from  England  to  Germany  was  construed  as  "  a  pledge 
that  the  two  nations  will  in  the  future  stand  firmly  to- 
gether in  the  manly  struggle  for  the  civil  and  religious 
freedom  of  peoples."  Both  these  resolutions  assume 
that,  in  the  recent  measures  for  counteracting  ultramon- 
tanism,  the  government  of  Germany,  and  especially  that 
of  Prussia,  is  upholding  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and 
contending  for  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  people ; 

*  Ultramontanism :  England^ s  Sympathy  with  Germany,  as  ex- 
pressed at  the  Public  Meeting  held  in  London  on  January  27th,  187 J^; 
and  Germany's  Response;  tcith  the  Ecclesiastical  Laws  of  Prussia,  §*c. 
Edited  by  the  Rev.  G.  R.  Badenoch,  LL.  D. 

La  Liberie  Religieuse  en  Europe  depuis  1870.  Par  E.  de  Pres- 
sense. 

The  Vatican  Decrees,  in  their  bearing  on  Civil  Allegiance :  a  Politi- 
cal Expostidation.    By  the  Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Gladstone,  M.  P. 


34  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

and  therefore  that  the  ecclesiastical  conflict  in  Germany 
is  of  common  concern  for  Christendom,  and  notably  for 
free  nations  such  as  England  and  the  United  States  —  in 
one  word,  this  is  a  case  of  the  solidarity  of  modern  so- 
ciety. If  this  assumption  is  true,  the  question,  why 
should  England  be  called  upon  to  sympathize  with  a 
great  successful  military  power  like  Germany  in  her  in- 
ternal conflicts,  is  already  answered  :  for  the  real  ques- 
tion is  not  whether  Germany  is  great  or  small,  strong  or 
weak,  but  is  she  just  and  right;?  No  nation  is  great 
enough  or  strong  enough  to  disregard  the  judgment  of 
mankind  and  the  verdict  of  history  upon  her  actions. 
The  highest  military  power  must  stand  before  the  moral 
tribunal  of  just  men.  Moreover,  the  conflict  in  Ger- 
many is  not  one  of  numerical  nor  of  military  strength, 
but  of  moral  forces  which  group  themselves  respectively 
about  two  essentially  antagonistic  and  irreconcilable 
ideas,  —  the  universal  supremacy  of  the  Pope,  and  the 
independent  sovereignty  of  the  nation.  In  this  view  the 
conflict  is  historical ;  it  was  necessai'y ;  it  is  a  conflict  of 
fundamental  political  and  ethical  principles ;  and  it  can 
admit  of  no  compromise.  To  comprehend  it  and  to 
measure  it  there  is  need  of  a  calm  intelligence  to  be  ex- 
ercised in  investigating  facts  and  in  evolving  principles, 
without  regard  to  national  or  ecclesiastical  theories  and 
prejudices  on  the  one  hand,  or  to  claims  of  sentiment 
and  of  sympathy  on  the  other. 

In  the  current  statements  of  this  conflict  far  too  much 
prominence  has  been  given  to  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  and  even  to  the  Pope  himself,  as  one  of  the 
contending  parties.  It  is  not  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
in  faith,  order,  or  worship,  that  is  in  question,  but  the 
attitude  of  the  hierarchy  of  that  church  toward  certain 
laws  and  measures  of  civil  government,  and  the  relative 
sanctity  of  the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical  oath.     It  is  not 


BISMARCK'S  STATEMENT  OF  THE  ISSUE.         35 

the  Pope  as  the  head  of  the  Latin  church  tliat  is  as- 
sailed, nor  Pius*  IX.  in  his  proper  personality,  or  in  his 
administration  of  church  affairs,  but  the  assumption  of 
the  Pope  to  define  the  functions  of  the  state,  and  to  en- 
join his  will  upon  all  rulers  in  Christendom,  on  the 
ground  that  "  every  one  who  has  been  baptized  belongs 
to  the  Pope  in  some  way  or  other."  ^  Though  Pope  and 
Emperor  are  in  open  controversy,  and  the  one  is  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  Romish  Church,  the  other  of  an  evan- 
gelical dynasty,  yet  when  stripped  of  all  personal  and 
doctrinal  elements,  the  contest  remains,  in  its  whole  sub- 
stance and  strength,  as  the  historical  and  inevitable  con- 
flict between  the  claims  of  ecclesiastical  prerogative  and 
the  sphere  and  scope  of  civil  power. 

In  his  speech  of  March  10,  1873,  in  the  Prussian 
House  of  Lords,  Prince  Bismarck  defined  the  position  in 
the  following  terms :  — 

"  In  my  opinion,  the  question  with  which  we  are  occupied  is 
falsified,  and  the  light  in  which  we  view  it  is  likewise  false, 
when  it  is  represented  as  a  question  of  church  or  of  coufession. 
It  is  really  a  political  question ;  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
struggle  of  an  evangelical  dynasty  against  the  Catholic  Church 
—  though  some  would  persuade  our  Catholic  fellow-citizens 
that  this  is  the  issue  ;  it  does  not  enter  into  the  strife  between 
faith  and  unbelief;  it  is  concerned  only  with  the  immemorial 
conflict  of  authority,  —  old  as  the  human  race,  the  couflict  be- 
tween kingship  and  priestism  [Konig-thum  und  Priester-thum, 
royalty  and  hierarchy] ;  that  contest  of  power  which  is  older  far 
than  the  appearing  of  our  Redeemer  in  the  world ;  that  contest 
of  power  in  which  Agamemnon  lay  at  Aulis  with  his  seers, 
which  there  cost  him  his  daughter,  and  hindered  the  departure 
of  the  Greeks ;  that  contest  of  power  which,  under  the  name  of 
the  wars  of  the  popes  with  the  emperors,  filled  the  history  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  down  to  the  disintegration  of  the  German 
empire.  ...  In  my  view  it  is  a  falsifying  of  politics  and  of  his- 

1  Letter  of  Pius  IX.  to  the  Emperor  William,  August  7,  1873. 


86  PAPARCUY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

tory  when  one  regards  His  Holiness  the  Pope  exclusively  as  the 
high-priest  of  a  confession,  or  the  Catholic  Church  chiefly  as  a 
representative  of  churchdom.  The  papacy  has  ever  been  a 
political  power  which,  with  the  greatest  audacity  and  with  most 
momentous  consequences,  has  interfered  in  the  affairs  of  this 
world ;  which  has  striven  after  such  encroachment,  and  held 
this  in  view  as  its  programme.  That  programme  is  well  under- 
stood. The  goal  which,  like  the  Frenchman's  dream  of  an  un- 
broken Rhine  boundary,  floats  before  the  papal  power,  the  pro- 
gramme which,  in  the  time  of  the  mediaeval  emperors,  was  near 
its  realization,  is  the  subjection  of  the  civil  power  to  the  ecclesi- 
astical ;  a  high  political  aim,  an  endeavor  which,  however,  is  as 
old  as  humanity,  since  there  have  always  been  either  shrewd 
men  or  actual  priests  who  have  put  forth  the  pretension  that 
the  will  of  God  was  more  intimately  known  to  them  than  to 
their  fellows,  and  that  upon  the  ground  of  this  pretension  they 
had  the  right  to  rule  their  fellows  ;  —  and  that  this  position  is 
the  basis  of  the  papal  pretension  to  sovereignty  is  well  known." 

That  position  and  that  pretension  are  indeed  the  his- 
torical ground  of  the  present  conflict  in  Germany  be- 
tween the  civil  government  and  the  Roman  hierarcliy. 
The  old  battle  for  sovereignty  between  the  civil  and  the 
ecclesiastical  power,  left  by  the  "  Holy  Roman  Empire  " 
as  an  inheritance  to  the  Germany  of  the  Reformation, 
was  again  left  as  a  drawn  game  or  an  armed  truce  at 
the  Peace  of  Westphalia ;  and  through  the  culmination 
of  two  forces  then  evolved  —  ultraraontanism  now  en- 
throned in  the  Vatican,  and  nationalism  now  realized 
in  the  Empire  of  Germany  and  the  Kingdom  of  Italy  — 
is  at  length  precipitated  to  what  should  be  its  final  issue 
between  Paparchy  and  Nationality.  For  a  historical 
date  of  this  contest  for  supremacy  in  Germany,  it  is 
enough  for  our  present  purpose  to  take  the  bull  of  Greg- 
ory VII.  excommunicating  Henry  IV.  {Beate  J^etre, 
Apostolorum  Princeps,  etc.)  A.  D.  1075.^ 

*  Magnum  BullHrium  Romanum,  i.  pp.  27-29.  See  also  in  Eisen- 
schmidt,  Kbmisches  BuUarium,  i.  pp.  9-16. 


CANOSSA.  8T 

Bismarck,  who  has  the  rare  faculty  of  compressing  a 
principle,  a  history,  a  philosophy,  into  a  proverb  for  the 
people,  in  his  speech  of  May,  1872,  in  the  imperial  Par- 
liament, after  the  Pope  had  declined  to  receive  Cardinal 
Hohenlohe  as  the  ambassador  of  Germany,  in  answer  to 
an  interpellation  as  to  the  intentions  of  the  government 
toward  the  Pope,  said  pithily,  "  We  are  not  going  to  Ca- 
nossa^  either  bodily  or  spiritually."  Henry  III.  had  won 
the  right  of  nominating  the  Pope,  and  had  made  German 
authority  supreme  at  Rome;  Gregory  VII.  summoned 
his  son  before  the  papal  court  at  Rome,  to  answer  for  of- 
fenses against  the  church.  The  scales  of  power  had  al- 
ready turned.  From  that  independence  of  control  which 
the  Pope  had  claimed  as  necessary  to  his  functions  as 
"  the  common  Father  of  the  Faithful,"  it  was  an  easy 
step  to  that  universal  supremacy  which  he  asserted  as 
the  vicegerent  of  God.  Henry  IV.,  smocked  and  bare- 
foot in  the  snow,  imploring  absolution  of  the  pitiless  Hil- 
debrand,  may  represent  only  the  personal  humiliation  of 
a  weak  and  vacillating  sovereign,  who  had  alienated  both 
princes  and  people  from  the  empire  which  his  father  had 
raised  to  the  height  of  its  power.  In  this  view,  the  inci- 
dent of  Canossa  is  of  no  more  significance  to  the  present 
ecclesiastical  conflict  in  Germany  than  the  deposition  of 
three  rival  Italian  popes  by  Henry  III. ;  for  though  the 
contests  of  personal  power  between  the  popes  and  the 
emperors  of  the  Middle  Ages  affected  by  turns  the  pre- 
ponderance of  the  church  and  of  the  state,  that  which 
concerns  this  discussion  is  the  conflict  of  principles,  or  of 
claims  put  forward  under  the  guise  of  principles. 

But  the  struggle  between  Gregory  VII.  and  Henry 
IV.  had  this  universal  significance,  —  that  the  Pope  then 
gave  a  concrete  practical  expression  to  the  doctrine  that, 
as  the  vicar  of  God,  and  intrusted  with  the  keys  of 
heaven  and  hell,  the  Roman   pontiff  has  supreme  and 


4:0<j3Sx 


88  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

indisputable  dominion  over  all  the  rulers  of  this  world. 
In  a  second  bull  of  excommunication  against  Henry  IV. 
(a.  d.  1080),  Gregory  invokes  the  apostles,  Peter  and 
Paul,  in  these  words :  — 

"  Now,  I  beseech  you,  0  most  holy  fathers  and  princes,  cause 
that  all  the  world  may  understand  and  know  that  if  ye  are  able 
to  bind  and  loose  in  heaven,  ye  are  able  upon  earth  to  give  and 
to  take  away  empires,  kingdoms,  principalities,  marquisates, 
duchies,  countships,  and  the  possessions  of  all  men,  according  to 
the  deserts  of  each.  Often,  indeed,  have  ye  taken  away  patri- 
archates, primacies,  archbishoprics,  and  bishoprics,  from  the  evil 
and  unworthy,  and  have  bestowed  these  upon  men  of  true  piety. 
If,  then,  ye  judge  spiritual  things,  what  must  not  be  believed  of 
your  power  over  worldly  things  ?  And  if  ye  judge  the  angels 
who  rule  over  all  proud  princes,  what  can  ye  not  do  to  their 
slaves  ?  "  ^ 

The  pontiff  thus  reinforces  his  own  authority  by  all 
the  hierarchies  of  heaven,  and,  as  the  successor  of  Peter, 
assumes  to  wield  upon  earth  the  invisible  powers  and  dig- 
nities attributed  to  the  apostle  in  his  beatified  state. 
Gregory  would  have  the  world  believe  that  all  things  in 
heaven  were  at  his  beck  to  enforce  his  excommunications 
on  earth,  and  with  this  array  he  divests  Henry  of  his 
crown,  absolves  his  subjects  from  their  allegiance,  and 
threatens  with  excommunication  any  and  all  who  shall 
acknowledge  Henry's  authority.  It  is  not  the  act  alone, 
but  the  ground  and  the  manner  of  this  papal  utterance 

^  "  Agile  nunc,  quaeso,  Patres  et  Prlncipes  Sanctissimi,  ut  omnis 
Mundus  intelligat  et  cognoscat,  quia  si  potestis  in  ccclo  ligare  et  sol- 
vere, potestis  in  terra  Imperia,  Regna,  Principatus,  Marcbias,  Duca- 
tus,  Comitatus,  et  omnium  hominum  possessiones  pro  meritia  tollere 
unicuique  et  concedere.  Vos  enim  Patriarchatus,  Priniatus,  Archi- 
episcopatus,  Episcopatus,  frequenter  tulistis  pravis  et  indignis,  et  re- 
ligiosis  viris  dedistis.  Si  enim  spiritualia  judicatis,  quid  de  sa;culari- 
bu9  non  posse  credendum  est?  et  si  Angelos  dominantes  omnibus 
superbis  Principibus  judicabitis,  quid  de  illorum  eervis  facere  potes- 
tis?" 


THE   USURPATION  OF  UILDE BRAND.  89 

that  stamps  it  as  the  historical  precedent  of  the  present 
struggle  between  the  Pope  and  the  Emperor  of  Germany. 
It  is  of  this  very  bull  of  Gregory  VII.  that  Mr.  Bryce 
has  said :  "  Doctrines  such  as  these  strike  equally  at  all 
temporal  governments,  nor  were  the  Innocents  and  Bon- 
ifaces of  later  days  slow  to  apply  them  so."^  But  Greg- 
ory did  not  content  himself  with  words.  By  denying  to 
the  civil  power  and  to  secular  patrons  the  right  of  ecclesi- 
astical investiture,  and  threatening  with  his  anathema 
any  ecclesiastic  who  should  acknowledge  a  temporal  or 
laical  right  of  patronage  or  of  confirmation  in  his  bene- 
fice, Gregory  not  only  severed  the  papacy  from  all  de- 
pendence on  the  empire,  but  provided  the  elements  of 
revolution  within  the  empire  itself.  He  aimed  at  the 
centralization  of  spiritual  power  in  the  person  of  the 
Pope,  but  would  also  retain  in  every  abbey,  in  every 
cathedral  chapter,  in  every  bishopric,  a  fulcrum  for  the 
leverage  of  the  spiritual  power  against  the  temporal. 

The  shrewdness  and  firmness  of  Hildebrand  in  grasp- 
ing the  independence  of  the  papal  see,  and  in  asserting 
the  bishopric  of  Rome  to  be  universal  and  absolute,  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  audacity  of  Innocent  III.  in  claim- 
ing to  be  the  arbiter  of  Christendom  in  all  disputes 
among  princes  and  peoples  —  a  claim  of  virtual  supremacy 
in  temporal  affairs,  by  the  plea  that  it  was  "  his  province 
to  judge  where  sin  is  committed,  and  his  duty  to  prevent 
all  public  scandals."  Already  had  Gregory  Yll.  con- 
ceived the  comparison  of  the  apostolic  and  royal  dignities 
to  the  sun  and  moon  as  the  chief  lights  that  rule  the 
world ;  but  Innocent  pressed  this  analogy  to  the  relative 
position  of  these  powers.  Writing  to  the  Emperor  of 
Constantinople,  he  says  :  — 

"Thou  shouldest  know  that  God  created  two  lights  in  the 
firmament,  the  sun  and  the  moon  —  that  is,  he  created  two  dig- 
*  The  Holy  Roman  Empire,  4th  ed.  p.  161.     Gladstone,  p.  41. 


40  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

nities,  the  papal  authority  and  the  kingly  power.  But  the  for- 
mer, which  is  set  over  the  days,  i.  e.,  the  spiritual  things,  is  the 
greater ;  that  set  over  the  things  of  the  flesh  is  the  smaller  ;  and 
there  is  the  same  difference  between  popes  and  kings  as  there  is 
between  the  sun  and  the  moon." 

And  in  plain  prose  Innocent  made  the  civil  power  as 
truly  a  reflection  of  the  spiritual,  and  its  tributary,  as  is 
the  moon  of  the  sun.  Englishmen  must  ever  blush  to  re- 
member how  audaciously  this  subordination  of  the  King 
to  the  Pope  was  paraded  by  Innocent,  in  the  bull  in  which 
he  accepts  the  submission  and  vassalage  of  King  John, 
and  vouchsafes  to  England  the  protectorate  of  Rome, 
In  that  bill  the  pontiff  declares  that  both  kingship  and 
priesthood  are  established  within  the  church  —  to  the 
end  that  the  kingdom  may  be  sacerdotal  and  the  priest- 
hood royal ;  that  as  every  knee  must  bow  to  Christ,  of 
things  in  heaven  and  things  on  earth,  and  things  under 
the  earth,  so  should  all  obey  and  serve  the  vicar  of  Christ 
on  earth  —  that  there  may  be  one  fold  and  one  shepherd ; 
and  hence  temporal  kings  are  not  to  be  acknowledged  as 
having  rightful  authority,  unless  they  study  to  serve  with 
true  devotion  this  representative  of  Christ's  kingly  and 
priestly  power.^ 

Audacious  as  were  these  assumptions  of  Innocent  III., 
they  were  capped  by  the  more  audacious  acts  of  Gregory 
IX.  and  Innocent  IV.  in  excommunicating  Frederic  II., 

*  "  Rex  Regnm  et  Dominus  dominantium,  Jesus  Christus,  Sacer- 
dos  in  seternum  secundum  ordinera  Melchizedek,  ita  Re<:rnum  et  Sac- 
erdotium  in  Ecclesia  stabilivit,  ut  sacerdotale  sit  Regnuiu  et  Sacer- 
dotium  sit  regale,  sicut  in  Epistola  Petrus  et  Moyses  in  lege  testaiitur; 
ununi  prajficiens  universis,  quern  suuni  in  terris  Vicariuin  ordinavit; 
ut  sicut  ei  flectitur  omne  genu  ccclestium,  terrestrium,  et  etiain  in- 
fernorum,  ita  illi  omnes  obediant  et  intendant,  ut  sit  unum  ovile  et 
unus  Pastor.  Ilunc  itaque  lieges  steculi  propter  Deuni  adeo  vener- 
antur,  ut  non  reputent,  se  rite  regnare,  nisi  studeant  ei  devote  ser- 
vire."  —  EibenscLuiidt,  i.  25. 


HISTORIC  PARALLELS.  41 

and  in  finally  deposing  him  from  his  imperial  and  kingly 
authority  by  decree  of  the  General  Council  of  Lyons 
(a.  d.  1245).  The  life-long  struggle  of  Frederic  with  the 
papacy,  —  covering  more  than  thirty  years  and  the  reigns 
of  four  popes, — like  the  struggle  of  Henry  IV.,  rises 
above  the  incidents  of  personal  ambition  and  official  ri- 
valry to  the  dignity  of  a  conflict  of  principles,  a  contest  of 
the  spiritual  and  temporal  powers  which,  then  personified 
respectively  in  Pope  and  Emperor,  are  no  less  hostile  and 
vigorous  to-day,  though  the  Pope  is  stripped  of  all  tem- 
poral sovereignty,  and  the  empire,  stripped  of  the  titles 
"  Holy  "  and  "  Roman,"  is  confined  within  the  boundaries 
of  Germany  proper,  and  rests  upon  a  representative  con- 
stitution'and  universal  suffrage.  Indeed,  in  reading  the 
controversy  between  Frederic  II.  and  Gregory  IX.,^  one 
can  almost  imagine  himself  reading  the  correspondence 
of  the  Emperor  William  of  Germany  with  Pius  IX.,  and 
finds  enough  to  justify  the  saying  of  the  emperor  in  his 
letter  of  February  18th  to  Earl  Russell,  that  the  duty  is 
devolved  upon  him  of  "leading  the  nation  once  more  in 
the  war  maintained  in  former  times,  for  centuries  long, 
by  the  German  emperors,  against  a  power  whose  domina- 
tion has  never  in  any  country  been  found  compatible  with 
the  freedom  and  the  welfare  of  nations."  Though  Pius 
IX.  cannot  wield  against  the  present  Emperor  of  Ger- 
many the  weapon  of  excommunication  that  his  prede- 
cessors used  so  often  and  so  effectively  against  Frederic 
11.,^  yet  he  has  found  a  substitute  in  apostolical  denuncia- 

^  See  in  Von  Raumer,  Geschichte  der  Hohenstaufen  unci  ihrer 
Zeit.  b.  iii.  pp.  416-444. 

2  For  the  titles  and  the  substance  of  these  numerous  bulls,  the 
reader  is  referred  to  the  admirable  compendium  of  Dr.  A.  Potthast, 
Regesta  Ponlijicum  Romanorum,  —  a  prize  work  of  the  Berlin  Acad- 
emy, —  in  which  every  official  document  of  the  popes,  from  a.  d.  1198 
to  1304,  is  catalogued  in  the  order  of  its  date,  and  is  cited  by  its  title, 
with  a  summary  of  its  contents  and  a  reference  to  historical  sources. 


42  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

tions  that  are  just  as  telling  with  the  mass  of  German  ad- 
herents of  the  papacy.  In  effect,  Gregory's  greater  ex- 
communication went  no  farther  in  inciting  the  Catholic 
hierarchy  and  laity  of  Germany  to  a  contemptuous  disre- 
gard of  their  emperor  and  his  laws  than  do  the  denuncia- 
tions of  Pius  IX.,  though,  of  course,  the  language  of  ex- 
communication was  more  formal  and  precise.  Gregory 
absolved  all  subjects  of  Frederic  from  tlieir  oath  of  alle- 
giance, threatened  with  the  papal  interdict  any  city, 
castle,  villa,  or  neighborhood  that  should  harbor  him,  for- 
bidding the  celebration,  either  publicly  or  privately,  of 
any  offices  of  religion  during  his  stay ;  threatened  with 
excommunication  all  who  should  assist  Frederic,  either 
with  or  without  arms  ;  and  enjoined  it  upon  all  patriarchs, 
archbishops,  and  bishops  in  Germany,  without  delay,  to 
proclaim  this  excommunication  and  anathema  with  ring- 
ing of  bells  and  illuminations  in  all  cities,  castles,  and  vil- 
lages throughout  their  dioceses.^  This  open,  high-handed 
attempt  of  the  Pope  to  incite  in  Germany  an  insurrection 
of  the  spiritual  power  against  the  temporal  is  feebly  im- 
itated in  the  warning  of  Pius  IX.  to  the  Emperor  Wil- 
liam, that  "the  measures  of  his  government  against  the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ  have  no  other  effect  than  that  of 
undermining  his  majesty's  own  throne."  But  the  Pope 
of  to-day  uses  the  weapons  at  his  command  with  the  same 
arrogance  as  the  haughtiest  of  his  predecessors  used  the 
thunders  of  excommunication  ;  and  the  Emperor  com- 
plains that  leaders  of  the  Romish  Church  in  Germany 
are  organizing  rebellion  against  the  state  :  — 

"To  my  deep  sorrow,  a  portion  of  my  Catholic  subjects  have 
organized  for  the  past  two  years  a  political  party  which  endeav- 
ors to  disturb,  by  intrigues  hostile  to  the  state,  the  religious 
peace  which  has  existed  in  Prussia  for  centuries.  Leading 
Catholic   priests   have,  unfortunately,  not   only  approved   this 

*  See  in  EisenschmUlt,  i.  pp.  35-39. 


INNOCENT  IV.  43 

movement,  but  joined  in  it  to  the  extent  of  open  revolt  against 
existing  laws." 

It  is  the  same  old  endeavor  of  the  papacy,  unaltered  in 
spirit  or  intent  by  all  the  changed  conditions  of  society. 

From  the  excommunication  of  Frederic,  so  haughtily 
proclaimed  by  Gregory  IX.,  it  was  but  a  step  to  his 
deposition  by  Innocent  IV.  —  a  logical  step  in  the  line 
of  papal  assumption.  In  presence  of  the  140  prelates 
assembled  in  the  Council  of  Lyons,  and  assuming  the  as- 
sent of  the  council,  without  even  condescending  to  take 
their  suffrages,  the  Pope  delivered  this  solemn  judgment, 
"  to  be  had  in  everlasting  remembrance  :  "  — 

"  Reciting  the  offenses  of  Frederic  against  the  church,  and  the 
fatherly  adraouitions  and  ecclesiastical  censures  through  which 
it  had  been  sought  to  reclaim  him,  Innocent  declares  '  that  the 
Emperor  had  imitated  the  obduracy  of  Pharaoh,  and  had  stopped 
his  ears  like  a  viper  ;  ^  -that  he  had  wrested  from  the  church  its 
possessions,  and  oppressed  the  clergy  with  taxes,  and  brought 
their  office  into  contempt;  while  to  show  his  own  contempt  for 
the  papal  excommunication,  he  had  openly  consorted  with  here- 
tics ; '  most  of  all  —  and  this  is  the  last  specification,  as  being 
worst  of  all  — '  he  had  built  neither  churches  nor  cloisters,  but 
had  rather  persecuted  and  destroyed  them.'  Then,  by  virtue  of 
his  authority  as  the  vicegerent  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  as  empow- 
ered by  Him,  in  the  person  of  the  apostle  Peter,  to  bind  or  loose 
upon  earth.  Innocent  declares  '  that  because  of  his  iniquities  the 
emperor  has  been  set  aside  by  God  from  the  sovereignty  of 
which  he  has  proved  himself  so  unworthy,  and  is  stripped  of  all 
his  honors  and  dignities,  which  judgment  the  apostolic  see  doth 
now  pronounce  and  enforce,  absolving  all  from  their  oath  of  al- 
legiance to  him,  threatening  with  excommunication  all  who  shall 
in  any  way  acknowledge  or  uphold  him  as  emperor  or  as  king ; 
and  summoning  the  electors  of  the  empire  to  choose  at  once  a 
successor  to  its  now  deposed  and  anathematized  head."  ^ 

1  "  Pharaonis  imitatus  duritiam  et  obdurans  more  aspidis,  aures 
suas  —  monita  —  despexit." 

*  Nos  itaque  super  prsemissis,  et  compluribus  aliis  ejus  nefandis 


44  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

What  gives  to  this  act  a  universal  interest  is  tlie  as- 
sumption upon  which  it  was  grounded,  that  the  Pope  is 
the  representative  upon  earth  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  is  em- 
powered to  interpret  and  to  enforce  tlie  will  of  God 
against  all  temporal  rulers,  in  the  supreme  and  sole  in- 
terest of  the  Catholic  Church.  The  papacy,  at  first  de- 
pendent upon  the  empire,  then  coordinate  with  it,  grad- 
ually achieved  its  independence  of  the  temporal  power ; 
next  exercised  its  spiritual  sovereignty  in  opposition  to 
civil  powers  upon  their  own  soil ;  and  finally  asserted  its 
absolute  suzerainty,  by  Divine  appointment,  even  to  the 
extent  of  dethroning  kings  and  emperors,  and  of  pai'cel- 
ing  out  their  power  and  their  territory  as  fiefs  of  the 
Holy  See.  It  only  remained  for  Boniface  VIII.,  in  his 
famous  bull  "  Unam  Sanctam^'^  to  declare  it  for  the 
teaching  of  the  gospel,  that  — 

"  The  Pope  has  two  swords,  the  spiritual  and  the  temporal ; 
the  one  to  be  wielded  by  the  church,  the  other  for  the  church  ; 
the  one  by  the  priesthood,  the  other  by  kings  and  soldiers,  but 
this  only  on  the  hint  or  the  sufferance  of  the  priest.  One 
sword,  however,  must  be  under  the  other,  and  the  temporal  au- 
thority must  be  subject  to  the  spiritual  power.  As  saith  the 
Apostle,  '  there  is  no  power  but  of  God :  the  powers  that  be 
are  ordered  (t.  e.,  set  in  order)  of  God ; '  but  they  would  not  be 
in  order  unless  one  sword  were  under  the  other,  and  also  unless 

excessibus  cum  fratribus  nostris,  et  sacro  Concilio  deliberatione  prae- 
habita  diligenti,  cum  Jesu  Christi  vices  licet  immeriti  teneamus  in 
terris,  nobisque  in  B.  Petri  Apostoli  persona  sit  dictum  ;  quod  cumque 
ligaveris  super  terranj,  etc.  —  memoratum  Principem  qui  se  iinperio, 
et  Regnis,  omnique  honore,  ac  dignitate  reddidit  tarn  indignum, 
quippe  propter  suas  iniquitates  a  Deo  ne  regnet  vel  imperet,  est  ab- 
jectus  suis  ligatum  peccatis,  et  abjectum,  omnique  honore,  et  digni- 
tate privatum  a  Domino  ostendimus,  denunciamus,  ac  nihilominus 
sententiando  privamus."  Here  follow  the  absolution  of  subjects  from 
the  oath  of  allegiance,  the  denunciation  of  allies  and  supporters,  and 
the  decree  for  the  election  of  a  new  emperor.  T.  i.  p.  87;  Eisen- 
Bchmidt,  i.  pp.  39-52. 


BONIFACE   VI JI.  45 

the  lower  could  be  lifted  by  the  other.  If  the  temporal  power 
goes  astray,  then  must  it  be  rectified  by  the  spiritual ;  if  such  a 
power  ill-treats  those  that  are  under  it,  it  has  a  judge  in  the 
higher  spiritual  power  ;  but  this  which  is  highest  of  all  can  be 
judged  by  God  only,  not  by  any  man,  as  saith  the  Apostle  ;  he 
that  is  spiritual  judgeth  all  things,  yet  he  himself  is  judged  of 
DO  man.  .  .  .  Wherefore  do  we  declare,  proclaim,  decree,  and 
determiue  hereby  that  every  human  creature  is  subject  to  the 
Roman  Pope,  and  that  none  can  be  saved  who  doth  not  so  be- 
lieve." 

Small  credit  is  due  to  Pius  IX.  and  the  Vatican  Coun- 
cil for  having  formulated  the  syllabus  and  infallibility 
as  dogmas  of  the  church ;  for  here  we  have,  almost  six 
centuries  before,  all  the  anathemas  of  the  one,  and  all 
the  arrogance  of  the  other.  These  reminiscences  will 
suffice  to  establish  our  first  point :  that  the  controversy 
now  waged  between  the  imperial  government  and  the 
Roman  hierarchy  in  Germany  is  deeply  rooted  in  the 
historical  incompatibility  of  the  pretensions  of  the  pa- 
pacy with  the  autonomy  of  the  state.  Much  as  England 
is  beholden  to  precedents,  she  has  largely  outgrown  her 
historical  antecedents,  while  her  insular  position  and  her 
world-wide  commercial  intercourse  have  helped  her  free 
development ;  whereas  Germany  is  still  a  land  of  tradi- 
tions, forms,  and  usages  —  a  land  in  which  "  that  which 
hath  been  is  now,  and  that  which  is  to  be  hath  already 
been."  It  would  be  impossible  to  reproduce  in  England 
the  ecclesiastical  quarrels  of  Henry  VIII.,  or  to  revive 
the  severities  of  Elizabeth  against  the  Catholics ;  but  in 
Germany  the  seeds  of  the  old  quarrel  between  the  tem- 
poral and  spiritual  powers  still  live,  and  Germany  is 
compelled  to  do  to-day  what  England  sought  to  do  in 
1581,  by  the  bill  "  to  restrain  her  majesty's  subjects  in 
their  due  obedience."  And  with  the  same  literal  truth 
it  may  be  said  of  Germany,  — 


46  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

"  A  sort  of  hypocrites,  Jesuits,  and  fragrant  friars  have  come 
into  the  realm,  to  stir  up  sedition.  .  .  .  AVhen  fair  means  have 
done  no  good,  and  behind  our  tolerance  there  come  in  these  em- 
issaries of  rebellion  and  sedition,  it  is  time  to  look  more  strictly 
to  them.  They  have  been  encouraged  so  far  by  the  lenity  of 
the  laws.  We  must  show  them,  that  as  the  Pope's  curses  do 
not  hurt  us,  so  his  blessings  cannot  save  them.  We  must  make 
laws  to  restrain  these  people,  and  we  must  prepare  force  to  re- 
sist violence  which  may  be  offered  here  or  abroad."  ^ 

This  ready  analogy  introduces  our  second  point :  that 
the  present  ecclesiastical  conflict  in  Germany  was  inevi- 
table. The  heritage  of  the  empire  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
it  takes  up  the  unfinished  conflict  of  the  Reformation, 
under  the  necessary  conditions  of  modern  society.  Philip 
the  Fair  of  France  had  met  the  towering  impudence  of 
Boniface  with  ridicule  and  contempt.  The  Pope  had 
written  to  him,  "  Know  thou,  that  thou  art  subject  to 
us  both  in  spiritual  and  in  temporal  things  ;  "  had  denied 
him  the  disposal  of  ecclesiastical  ofiices  and  benefices, 
and  required  him,  in  case  of  vacancy,  to  guard  the  reve- 
nues of  the  same  for  successors  duly  appointed,  adding, 
"  Whoever  shall  otherwise  believe  and  do,  the  same  shall 
be  deemed  a  heretic."     To  this  Philip  answered,  — 

"  Philip,  by  the  grace  of  God,  King  of  France,  to  Boniface, 
who  gives  himself  out  for  Pope,  little  or  no  greeting !  Know 
thou,  O  supreme  fool,  that  in  temporal  things  we  are  not  sub- 
ject to  any  one ;  that  the  disposal  of  vacant  churches  and  bene- 
fices belongs  to  us  of  royal  right ;  that  the  revenues  of  the  same 
belong  to  us ;  that  all  our  bestowments  of  the  same,  past  or  to 
come,  are  valid,  and  shall  stand,  and  that  we  will  manfully  de- 
fend their  possessors.  If  any  think  otherwise,  we  will  take 
them  for  fools  and  idiots."  ^ 

1  Speech  of  Sir  Walter  Mildmay,  D' Ewes'  Journals,  1580,  1581, 
quoted  by  Froude,  Hist.  vol.  xi.  cb.  xxviii. 
'  Eisenscbmidt,  i.  104, 105. 


ULTRAMONTANISM  IN  FRANCE.  47 

In  this  scornful  defiance  Philip  had  all  France  at  his 
back  ;  and  the  anathemas  and  excommunications  that 
Boniface  heaped  upon  him  were  met  by  protests  from  all 
the  estates  of  the  realm.  To-day,  one  sees  in  France 
ultramontanism  triumphant  over  the  old  Galilean  inde- 
pendence, and  hears  an  archbishop,  who  had  contested 
the  proclamation  of  infallibility,  now  requiring  his  clergy 
to  accept  the  dogma,  with  the  implicit  obedience  of  the 
soldier  to  his  superior.  In  May,  1872,  E.  de  Pressens^ 
wrote  in  the  "  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  :  "  — 

"  Before  the  proclamation  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Holy  Fa- 
ther there  existed  in  France  a  liberal  Catholicism ;  this  accepted 
modern  society,  and  that  separation  of  powers  which  is  its  es- 
sential condition.  Such  a  Catholicism,  no  doubt,  exists  in  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  individuals,  but  its  partisans  cannot  speak 
as  heretofore ;  they  are  condemned  to  silence  or  to  ambigui- 
ties ;  the  encyclical  of  the  infallible  Pope  no  longer  permits 
extenuating  commentaries.  It  is  certain  that  the  doctrine  of 
the  later  encyclicals  tends  to  destroy  completely  the  distinction 
between  civil  society  and  religious  society.  The  ultramontane 
reaction  which  has  commenced  under  our  eyes  is  the  putting  in 
operation  of  that  which  was  decided  upon  at  the  Council  of  the 
Vatican  ;  this  is  the  real  campaign  of  the  interior  which  Rome 
has  now  begun." 

How  much  this  pregnant  phrase  signifies,  Pressens^ 
tells  us  in  these  words :  — 

"  France  enfeebled,  is  exposed  to  a  new  peril,  no  less  grave 
than  those  she  has  gone  through  with.  The  foreigner  has 
seized  her  provinces ;  and  now  come  those  who  would  have  her 
abandon  her  moral  patrimony,  that  most  incontestable  fruit  of 
the  glorious  movement  of  1789  —  the  lay  character  of  the  mod- 
ern state.  The  French  Revolution  has  had  no  result  more  sure 
than  the  secularization  of  social  society.  But  it  is  in  France, 
after  her  disasters,  that  ultramontanism  has  found  the  most 
favorable  ground  for  engaging  in  the  contest  against  modern 
society." 


48  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

This  contrast  of  the  subservient  French  Catholicism  of 
to-day  with  the  defiant  Gallicanisin  of  Philip  the  Fair, 
or  even  with  St.  Louis  IX.'s  milder  assertion  of  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  king  and  the  national  church,  shows 
how  far  from  dead,  either  in  letter  or  in  spirit,  are  the 
pretensions  of  Rome  to  the  universal  control  of  society  in 
temporal  as  in  spiritual  affairs ;  and  the  picture  which 
this  intelligent  and  impartial  witness  gives  of  the  origin 
and  the  endeavor  of  the  ultramontane  reaction  in  France, 
should  be  seriously  pondered  by  all  who  imagine  that  in 
Germany  Bismarck  has  got  up  a  quarrel  with  the  Rom- 
ish Church  for  political  ends  of  his  own.  "  Whence  has 
arisen  that  formidable  agitation  which  troubles  all  states 
if  not  from  the  Council  of  the  Vatican  ?  .  .  .  Papal  in- 
fallibility is  nothing  but  the  speaking-trumpet  (le  porte- 
voiz)  of  the  Society  of  Jesus,  for  fulminating  its  anath- 
emas against  all  liberty,  civil  and  religious."  ^  It  is 
Rome  that  has  opened  in  every  land  "  a  campaign  of  the 
interior,"  a  contest  with  society  itself,  in  the  bosom  of 
Germany,  of  Austria,  of  France,  of  Italy,  of  Brazil,  of 
Switzerland,  and  of  England  as  well,  where  a  "  Catholic 
first  and  an  Englishman  afterwards,"  is  the  cry  of  the 
Ultramontanes  I 

But  to  return  to  the  logical  development  of  this  irre- 
pressible conflict.  After  the  bold  resistance  of  Philip  of 
France  to  papal  domination,  Germany  so  far  recovered 
from  the  blow  inflicted  upon  Frederic  II.  and  his  house, 
that  in  1338  the  imperial  electors  assembled  at  Rhense 
resolved  to  maintain  the  honor  and  dignity  of  the  empire 
against  the  encroachments  of  Rome,  and  refused  to  sub- 
mit their  choice  of  emperor  to  be  ratified  by  the  Holy 
See.  Emperor  no  less  than  pope  held  his  oflice  by  di- 
vine right ;  but  this  gain  to  civil  independence  was  igno- 

1  E.  de  Pressense,  La  Liberie  Rel'ujieuse  en  Europe  depuis  1870, 
pp.  443,  444.     See,  also,  Gladstone,  p.  11. 


CONTEST  OF  POPE  AND  EMPEROR.  49 

miniously  bartered  away  in  the  next  century  by  the 
Hapsburg  Frederic  III.,  for  the  sanction  of  the  court  of 
Rome.  And  so  the  contest  between  the  dual  powers  of 
Pope  and  Kaiser,  now  rival,  now  reconciled,  each  claim- 
ing to  be  independent  of  the  other  by  the  same  divine 
prerogative,  yet  each  dependent  upon  the  other  for  hu- 
man recognition  and  support ;  each  by  turns  exercising 
over  the  other  an  authority  well-nigh  exclusive,  yet  each 
professing  to  act  only  within  its  distinctive  sphere,  and 
to  concede  to  the  other,  though  with  changeful  and  con- 
tested boundaries,  its  appropriate  functions  and  powers  ; 
both  struggling  for  the  highest  dominion  within  their 
reach,  and  neither  yielding  save  on  compulsion ;  this 
contest  between  will  as  law  and  faith  as  authority,  that 
lies  in  the  very  dualism  of  man's  nature  as  belonging  to 
the  temporal  and  the  spiritual,  and  in  the  duality  of 
spheres  and  institutions  as  adapted  to  these,  continued 
to  vibrate  from  the  throne  to  the  altar,  and  from  the 
altar  to  the  throne,  till  the  Reformation  gave  to  both 
powers  a  shock  that  compelled  each  to  look  to  its  own 
foundations,  regardless  of  the  fate  of  the  other. 

Already  the  scandal  of  the  great  schism  had  shaken 
the  reverence  of  princes  and  people  for  the  Holy  See, 
and  had  accustomed  men  to  look  upon  the  papacy  more 
in  the  light  of  a  rival  and  intriguing  political  power  than 
of  a  supreme  spiritual  sovereignty.  And  now  the  dis- 
graceful exposures  of  nepotism  and  profligacy  at  Rome, 
and  of  venality  in  the  disposal  of  the  most  sacred  rights 
and  offices  of  the  church,  and  also  of  the  pardoning 
grace  of  the  gospel  itself,  had  roused  Germany  to  a  re- 
volt against  the  authority  of  the  Pope  even  in  spiritual 
things.  The  old  contests  of  Rome  with  the  personal 
spirit  and  strength  of  individual  German  emperors  paled 
before  this  new  struggle  with  the  conscience  of  the  na- 
tion, stirred  with  the  most  vital  concerns  of  the  church, 


60  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

of  the  faith,  of  the  soul  itself.  Here  was  the  personal 
soul,  armed  with  faith  in  a  personal  God,  resisting  any 
intervention  between  itself  and  its  Maker  other  than  the 
mediation  of  Christ  as  taught  in  the  Gospels,  and  con- 
firmed by  spiritual  experience. 

With  the  Reformation,  in  its  doctrines,  its  measures, 
its  results,  we  have  here  nothing  to  do.  From  its  begin- 
ning with  the  Theses  of  Luther  against  Tetzel,  to  its 
termination  with  the  Catholic  restoration  and  the  relig- 
ious Peace  of  Westphalia,  it  concerns  us  only  as  a  new 
epoch  in  the  time-worn  conflict  of  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  powers. 

Had  the  Reformation  been  allowed  to  have  its  way  as 
a  revolt  of  the  people  against  corruption  and  tyranny  in 
the  church,  and  finally  against  the  Roman  curia  as  the 
fountain  of  this  corruption  and  the  centre  of  this  tyr- 
anny, it  could  hardly  have  stopped  short  of  its  logical 
issue  in  the  separation  of  church  and  state,  and  in  the 
repudiation  by  both  of  the  authority  of  Rome.  In  that 
event  the  papacy  might  have  been  finally  driven  from  its 
position  of  spiritual  dictatorship  in  temporal  affairs. 
But,  as  it  proved,  the  papacy  not  only  survived  the  pop- 
ular revolution  that  at  first  threatened  to  sweep  it  away, 
but  regained  much  of  the  territory  that  it  seemed  to 
have  lost,  expanded  its  activity  into  new  regions  of  con- 
quest, and  consolidated  its  spiritual  power  within  the 
church  in  determined  hostility  to  society  itself;  for 
Rome,  like  Russia,  knows  well  how  to  bide  her  time, — 
if  she  seems  to  recede,  it  is  only  to  recuperate  her  forces, 
and  since  she  never  loses  sight  of  her  goal,  she  counts 
upon  time  and  opportunity  to  make  even  defeats  and 
hostile  treaties  conduct  her  to  it. 

The  causes  of  the  halting  of  the  Reformation  were 
threefold  :  first,  the  necessity  felt  by  the  reformers  them- 
selves of  making  alliances  with  princes  in  order  to  se- 


THE  REFORMATION.  61 

cure  to  Protestantism  a  footing  as  a  political  power ; 
second,  the  fear  of  political  revolutions,  which  led  other 
princes  to  form  a  league  with  the  Pope  for  the  preserva- 
tion of  their  own  dominions ;  and,  finally,  that  tendency 
in  human  nature,  and  especially  in  communities  of  men, 
to  a  reaction  from  an  intense  and  exciting  public  move- 
ment —  a  tendency  sure  to  be  favored  by  the  excesses  of 
enthusiasts  in  the  movement  itself.  All  these  causes 
combined  to  modify  and  restrain  the  Reformation  in 
Germany,  the  spring  of  the  whole  movement;  Luther 
required  the  aid  of  powerful  nobles  and  princes ;  Charles 
v.,  who  had  first  thought  to  play  with  Luther  against 
the  Pope,  and  who  tantalized  the  Protestant  princes 
with  promises  of  reform,  at  length  made  pact  with  Leo 
X.  to  put  down  heresy  in  Germany  if  the  Pope  would 
support  him  in  Italy  against  France ;  and  the  excesses  at 
Miinster  and  the  peasants'  war  made  all  men  desirous  of 
more  quiet  times.  But  the  definitive  close  of  the  Refor- 
mation in  Germany  —  when  Protestantism  passed  from 
the  condition  of  a  movement  against  Rome  into  one  of 
the  orders  of  society  —  dates  from  the  Peace  of  West- 
phalia in  1648,  after  a  civil  war  between  Protestants  and 
Catholics  had  desolated  the  land  for  thirty  years.  And 
it  is  at  this  point  that  we  take  up  again  the  thread  of 
the  relation  of  the  papacy  to  the  civil  power. 

The  Peace  of  Westphalia  was  in  reality  nothing  but 
an  armed  truce  between  powers,  neither  of  which  could 
boast  a  victory,  but  which  must  stop  fighting  if  they 
would  save  their  existence.  It  established  a  modus  Vi- 
vendi^ upon  the  basis  of  confessional  toleration,  but  it 
neither  dissolved  church  and  state,  relegating  each  to 
its  distinct  and  independent  sphere,  nor  defined  the  au- 
thority of  each  in  relation  to  the  other,  but  left  the 
ecclesiastical  and  civil  powers  to  adjust  themselves  by 
traditions,  treaties,  concordats,  and  incongruous  mixtures 


62  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

of  civil  and  canon  law.  As  before  the  lleformation, 
princes  continued  to  juggle  or  to  joust  with  popes  ac- 
cording to  their  political  interests.  With  the  fate  of 
such  puppets  we  have  here  nothing  to  do  ;  but  from  the 
chaos  of  the  Reformation  there  emerged  two  hostile  prin- 
ciples whose  fate  involves  to-day  the  fate  of  our  modern 
civilization.  A  compromise  between  principles  of  ethics 
or  systems  of  politics  which  are  irreconcilable  in  their 
own  nature  entails  a  conflict  upon  after  generations. 
Sooner  or  later,  such  a  compromise  must  be  broken,  and 
where  the  compromise  is  between  a  free  movement  that 
trusts  to  light  and  evidence  and  a  hide-bound  system 
that  insists  upon  precedent  and  form,  it  is  the  tendency 
of  the  latter  —  having  a  sort  of  hereditary  compactness 
suited  to  aggression  —  to  push  itself  and  grow,  till  its 
encroachments  compel  the  former  to  arouse  to  self-de- 
iense.  Now  at  the  period  of  the  Reformation  we  find 
the  old  notion  of  a  universal  paparchy  incorporated  in 
the  order  of  the  Jesuits — "  who  claimed  for  the  church 
an  unlimited  supremacy  over  the  state,  and  made  the 
existence  of  a  government,  and  the  allegiance  paid  to  it, 
to  depend  on  the  application  of  its  power  to  the  interests 
of  the  Catholic  Church."  ^  On  the  other  hand,  the 
struggles  in  Germany  for  religious  life  and  for  political 
rights  had  begun  to  develop  that  sentiment  of  nationality 
which  shapes  the  political  divisions  and  orders  the  politi- 
cal life  of  the  modern  state.  The  first  of  these  principles 
has  culminated  at  Rome  in  the  dogma  of  infallibility  ; 
the  second  has  culminated  in  Germany  in  the  realization 
of  a  true  integral  union  and  political  life  of  the  nation, 
and  again  also  in  the  kingdom  of  Italy  ;  and  these  antag- 
onistic principles  have  come  to  an  inevitable  cullision, 
whose  focus  is  in  Germany. 

*  Kanke,  History  of  the  Popes,  part  ii.  bk.  vi.,  "  Ecclcsiastico- 
Political  Tbeorj-." 


NATIONALITY  AND  ECCLESIASTICISM.  63 

It  may  be  alleged,  however,  that  from  an  early  day  a 
national  life  was  developed  in  France  and  in  Spain  in 
subordination  to  the  papal  supremacy.  But  as  to  France, 
the  sentiment  of  nationality  was  there  nurtured  by  the 
earlier  Gallicanism  of  her  clergj',  —  episcopal  against  pa- 
pal supremacy,  —  and  the  volcanic  eruption  of  national- 
ism in  her  revolution  overwhelmed  the  Roman  hierarchy 
as  hostile  to  the  state.  Moreover,  France,  however  pas- 
sionate in  her  own  nationalism,  has  not  respected  nation- 
ality as  the  unit  of  state  organization  ;  but  by  invasion 
and  intervention,  by  lust  of  conquest  or  of  control,  has 
violated  in  others  the  self-same  principle  which  she  as- 
serted for  her  own  political  existence.  At  the  present, 
in  the  chaos  of  the  forms  of  national  life  in  France,  one 
sees  how  far  the  life  itself  has  been  depressed  through 
that  Catholic  training  which  now  substitutes  pilgrimages 
for  patriotism.  And  who  would  think  of  quoting  Spain, 
the  field  of  provincial  rivalries,  for  an  illustration  of  the 
modern  idea  of  the  nation  as  the  normal  unit  of  the  po- 
litical state? — Spain,  in  the  days  of  her  prosperity,  the 
creature  of  the  papacj^  for  exterminating  the  Protestant 
heresy  by  the  Inquisition  and  the  Armada  ;  now,  in  her 
adversity,  a  warning  of  what  the  paparchy  would  make 
of  any  and  every  nation. 

By  the  nation,  in  the  conception  of  political  philoso- 
phy, is  meant  a  people  of  like  spirit,  language,  and  aims, 
united  in  one  political  body,  upon  the  same  soil  and  un- 
der the  same  institutions.  Fiore,  in  his  "  Nouveau  Droit 
International,"  defines  a  nation  by  "  communautd  du 
sang,  de  langue,  d'aptitude,  et  une  affinity  de  vie  civile, 
de  temperament,  de  vocation."  INIr.  David  Dudley 
Field,  in  his  "  International  Code,"  says,  "  A  nation  is  a 
people  permanently  occupying  a  definite  territory,  hav- 
ing a  common  government,  peculiar  to  themselves,  for 
the  administration  of  justice  and  the  preservation  of  in- 


54  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

ternal  order,  and  capable  of  maintaining  relations  with 
all  other  governments."  This  body,  whatever  the  politi- 
cal form  under  which  it  is  organized  as  a  state,  possesses 
in  its  own  nature  the  supreme  attribute  of  sovereignty, 
and  this  sovereignty  of  the  nation  is  independent,  com- 
plete, and  absolute.  "  It  is  suprema  potestas  ;  it  is  sub- 
ject to  no  external  control,  but  its  action  is  in  correspond- 
ence with  its  own  determination.  It  is  inalienable ;  it 
is  indivisible  ;  it  is  irresponsible  to  any  external  author- 
ity ;  it  is  comprehensive  of  the  whole  political  order.  In 
its  own  sovereignty,  and  in  its  own  free  spirit,  the  polit- 
ical people  is  to  mould  its  own  political  life,  and  to  em- 
body in  it  its  own  ideal,  and  to  apprehend  in  it  its  own 
aim."i  This  is  the  conception  of  the  nation  which  mod- 
ern society  has  evolved,  and  by  which  the  political  map 
of  Europe  is  now  to  be  constructed,  in  contradistinction 
to  the  "  Holy  Roman  Empire,"  the  "  Holy  Alliance," 
and  the  notion  of  the  "  balance  of  power."  Upon  no 
condition  can  such  a  nation  admit  a  power  that  is  not  in 
and  of  itself,  yet  claims  to  be  above  itself,  and  by  an  in- 
fallible authority  from  God  to  supervise,  to  condemn,  or 
to  resist  its  laws.  The  conflict  between  nationality  and 
paparchy  was  inevitable,  and  is  irreconcilable.  One  or 
the  other  must  go  under.  Had  Bismarck  brought  on 
this  conflict  for  some  passing  policy,  he  might  incur  the 
censure  of  history.  But  Bismarck  did  not  originate  it  in 
Austria,  in  Switzerland,  in  Brazil,  nor  yet  in  Germany. 
As  Mr.  Seward  with  slavery,  he  had  the  sagacity  to  see 
that  the  conflict  was  "  irrepressible ; "  but  with  more 
boldness  than  Seward  he  seized  the  enemy  by  the  throat, 
and  will  not  let  him  go.  This  is  no  forced  collision,  no 
politician's  quarrel. 

A  comparison  of  the  territorial  and  numerical  strength 
of  the  Romish  Church  in  Europe  with  what  it  was  at  the 
^  Mulford,  The  Nation,  chap.  viii. 


TERRITORIAL  DIVISIONS   OF  TUE   CHURCH.       55 

Peace  of  Westphalia  will  sliow  that  there  is  as  much 
call  to-day  for  resistance  to  her  devices  and  encroach- 
ments as  there  was  at  the  era  of  the  Reformation  ;  — 
that  Rome  has  not  changed  with  the  times,  nor  learned 
to  abate  one  whit  of  her  pretensions,  nor  lost  an^  of  her 
old  penchant  for  political  conspiracies.  Unfortunately 
the  materials  are  scanty  for  a  close  and  accurate  compar- 
ison, especially  in  the  statistics  of  population  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  ago. 

If  we  examine  the  map  of  Europe  at  the  beginning  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  from  an  ecclesiastical  point  of 
view,  we  find  the  whole  continent,  and  the  British  Isles 
as  well,  divided  into  ecclesiastical  provinces,  and  these 
again  into  archbishoprics  and  bishoprics,  the  only  marks 
of  diversity  being  toward  the  East,  where  dioceses  of 
the  Greek  and  Armenian  churches  displace  the  Roman 
Catholic.  The  boundary  lines  are  those  of  provinces  and 
dioceses,  and  the  map  is  dotted  all  over  with  symbols 
that  distinguish  sees  and  cloisters.^  And  these  territo- 
rial divisions  were  far  from  being  conventional,  for  the 
mere  convenience  of  ecclesiastical  administration  ;  they 
often  represented  principalities  and  powers  having  a 
vested  inheritance  in  the  soil,  and  a  voice  in  political 
affairs.  Indeed,  throughout  Germany  the  bishops  had 
become  more  conspicuous  as  secular  princes  than  as  ec- 
clesiastical superintendents,  and  in  this  character  they 
had  a  relative  independence  of  the  Roman  curia,  which 
sometimes  made  them  quite  serviceable  to  the  Emperor 
in  his  quarrels  with  the  Pope,  —  though  the  ecclesiastical 
instinct  commonly  guided  them  to  Rome. 

^  The  ecclesiastical  cartojrraphy  of  Europe,  in  successive  centuries, 
is  by  no  means  complete.  Enough  has  been  done,  however,  by  Von 
Spruner,  in  bis  New  Historical  Atlas,  published  by  Perthes,  in 
Gotha,  to  furnish  the  more  prominent  data  for  such  a  comparison  as 
is  here  attempted.  See  also  Wiltsch,  Kirchliche  Geographie  und 
Statistik ;  Neher,  Kirchliche  Geographie,  and  C.  v.  H.  Aloys,  Katho- 
lische  Kirche. 


66  PAPARCUY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

Sixty  years  later  the  map  of  Europe  shows  us  the  to- 
kens of  Roman  Catholic  occupation  well-nigh  effaced  in 
the  northern  and  middle  countries  of  the  continent; 
bishoprics  and  cloisters,  either  sequestered  by  the  state 
or  appropriated  to  another  faith ;  Protestants  having  a 
recognized  and  legal  existence  in  France  ;  and  the  Refor- 
mation gaining  head  even  in  the  peninsulas  of  Spain  and 
Italy.  Protestantism  was  now  at  its  height  —  just,  in- 
deed, turning  to  the  ebb,  while  the  flood-tide  of  the  coun- 
ter-Reformation, destined  to  overflow  so  much  of  the  re- 
formed territory,  was  already  setting  in.  It  is  impossi- 
ble to  give  with  accuracy  the  popular  strength  of  the 
Protestant  and  the  Romish  elements,  for  there  are  no 
census  returns  of  that  period  by  which  to  estimate  the 
two  confessions ;  and  the  rule  acceded  to  at  the  Peace  of 
Augsburg,  cujus  regio  ejus  religio  —  that  each  state 
should  follow  the  religion  of  its  head —  would,  of  course, 
disfavor  any  discrimination  in  matters  of  faith  among 
subjects  of  the  same  government.  But,  taking  only  the 
broad  territorial  view,  we  find  all  Scandinavia  Prot- 
estant ;  all  Northern  Germany,  not  excepting  the  chief 
cities  and  towns  of  Polish  Prussia,  to-day  the  seat  of 
ultramontanism ;  nor  the  Rhine  provinces,  nor  that  very 
Paderborn  in  Westphalia  where  to-day  the  Roman  hie- 
rarchy openly  defies  the  Prussian  government ;  we  find 
Protestantism  strong  in  Bavaria,  where  to-day  tlie  Ultra- 
montanes  threaten  to  control  the  King  and  the  Parlia- 
ment, and  to  disband  the  German  Empire  ;  we  find 
Protestantism  prevalent  in  Bohemia  and  in  Hungary, 
and  almost  universal  in  Austria,  where  "  all  the  colleges 
of  the  land  were  filled  with  Protestants  ;  and  it  was 
said  to  be  ascertained  that  not  more,  perhaps,  than  the 
thirtieth  part  of  the  population  had  remained  Catholic.'"-' 
The  condensed  summary  which  Ranke  gives  of  the  tri- 

^  Ranke. 


\  TRIUMPHS  OF  PROTESTANTISM.  67 

umphs  of  Protestantism  is  marked  by  his  characteristic 
clearness,  thoroughness,  and  candor:  — 

"  In  short,  from  east  to  west,  and  from  north  to  south, 
throughout  all  Germany,  Protestantism  liad  unquestionably  the 
preponderance.  The  nobility  were  attached  to  it  from  the  very 
first ;  the  body  of  public  functionaries,  already  in  those  days 
numerous  and  important,  was  trained  up  in  the  new  doctrine ; 
the  common  people  would  hear  no  more  of  certain  articles, 
such,  for  instance,  as  purgatory,  or  of  certain  ceremonies,  such 
as  the  pilgrimages ;  not  a  man  dur,>5t  come  forward  with  holy 
relics.  .  .  .  The  confiscation  of  church  property  was  energeti- 
cally carried  on.  .  .  .  Protestant  opinions  had  triumphed  in 
the  universities  and  educational  estabHshments.  The  teachers 
in  Germany  were  all  almost  without  exception  Protestant ;  the 
whole  body  of  the  rising  generation  sat  at  their  feet,  and  im- 
bibed a  hatred  of  tbe  Pope  with  the  first  rudiments  of  learning. 
Such  was  the  state  of  things  in  the  north  and  east  of  Europe ; 
in  many  places  Catholicism  was  entirely  exploded,  in  all  it  was 
subdued  and  despoiled.  While  it  was  struggling  to  defend  it- 
self, the  Calvinistic  system,  an  enemy  still  more  formidable  than 
Lutherauism,  rose  against  it  in  the  west  and  south.  .  .  .  Prot- 
estantism embraced  the  whole  range  of  the  Latin  church  ;  it 
had  laid  hold  on  a  vast  majority  of  the  higher  classes,  and  of 
the  minds  that  took  part  in  public  life  ;  whole  nations  clung  to 
it  with  enthusiasm,  and  states  had  been  remodeled  by  it."  ^ 

For  a  moment  the  fear  seems  to  have  been  entertained 
at  Rome  that  all  would  be  lost; — at  least  if  we  must 
understand  the  Venetian  ambassador  to  the  curia,  Paolo 
Tiepolo,  in  his  report  on  Rome  in  the  times  of  Pius  IV. 
and  v.,  to  reflect  the  rumors  and  apprehensions  current 
during  his  sojourn  at  the  capital ;  and  this  was  his  testi- 
mony :  — 

"  Speaking  only  of  those  nations  of  Europe  which  not  only 
used  to  obey  the  Pope  but  also  followed  in  every  particular  the 

1  Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes,  bk.  v.,  "  First  Period  of  Counter- 
Reformation." 


68  PAP  ARCH  Y  AND  NATIONALITY. 

rites  and  usages  of  the  Roman  church,  celehrating  public  wor- 
ship too  in  the  Latin  language,  it  is  notorious  that  England, 
Scotland,  Denmark,  Norway,  Sweden,  and,  in  a  word,  all 
the  countries  of  the  north,  are  alienated  from  it.  Germany  is 
almost  wholly  lost,  Bohemia  and  Poland  are  in  a  great  degree 
infected,  the  low  countries  of  Flanders  are  so  corrupted  that, 
notwithstanding  all  the  efforts  of  the  Duke  of  Alva  to  remedy 
the  evil,  they  will  hardly  ever  return  to  their  original  healthy 
condition  ;  and  lastly  France,  by  means  of  these  morbid  humors, 
is  all  replete  with  confusion,  so  t1iat  it  appears  nothing  remains 
to  the  Pope  intact  and  secure  but  Spain  and  Italy,  with  some 
few  islands,  and  with  those  countries  possessed  by  your  Serenity 
in  Dalmatia  and  in  Greece."  ^ 

But  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  ec- 
clesiastical map  shows  us  not  only  Italy,  Spain,  and  Por- 
tugal as  dependencies  of  Rome,  and  France  a  strong 
Catholic  power,  though  tolerating  Protestantism  within 
her  bosom,  but  Bavaria,  Austria,  Bohemia,  Hungary,  Po- 
land, and  several  of  the  minor  states  of  Germany,  restored 
to  their  allegiance  to  the  curia,  and  that  territorial  pre- 
ponderance secured  to  the  Romish  Church  which  it  has 
retained  to  this  day.  The  reforms  in  practice  and  in  dis- 
cipline which  the  Council  of  Trent  had  introduced,  to- 
gether with  the  rigor  of  dogma  which  it  had  enjoined,  the 
tact  and  resolution  of  Pope  Paul  IV.,  the  dissensions 
among  Protestant  princes  and  the  leaders  of  the  reform, 
the  league  of  Catholic  princes  with  one  another  and  with 
the  Pope  for  mutual  defense  and  help,  and  the  exhaus- 
tion consequent  upon  long  years  of  war,  had  all  contrib- 
uted to  this  result.  "  In  Germany  the  reaction  had 
been  measureless.  Protestantism  was  repulsed  with  as 
much  energy  as  it  had  before  swept  onwards.  Preach- 
ing and  doctrine  contributed  to  this,  but  infinitely  more 
was  done  by  policy,  commands,  and  open  violence."  ^ 

^  Quoted  by  Ranke.  '  Ranke,  ut  sup. 


COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  69 

But  with  this  period,  as  with  that  from  Hildebrand  to 
the  Reformation,  we  are  concerned  only  as  its  results  af- 
fected the  hereditary  struggle  between  the  spiritual  and 
temporal  powers,  and  this  especially  with  reference  to 
Germany.  If  for  a  moment  papal  authority  reeled  under 
the  strange,  wild  blows  of  popular  revolt,  so  different  from 
a  passage-at-arms  with  an  emperor,  it  gradually  recovered 
itself,  and  opposed  to  the  reform  not  only  the  personal 
prerogative  of  the  Pope  as  the  vicar  of  Christ,  but  this 
authority  organized  more  compactly  and  firmly  in  the 
church  itself,  which  now  presented  one  solid,  united 
front.  In  the  Council  of  Trent  the  extreme  view  of 
papal  authority  prevailed.  Pope  Pius  IV.  overriding  the 
remonstrance  of  the  Emperor  and  of  France,  and  not  the 
unity  of  the  church  alone,  but  the  unity  and  supremacy 
of  her  authority  in  her  divinely  constituted  head,  being 
the  principle  that  ruled  in  all  its  decrees.  Those  decrees 
themselves  were  to  be  interpreted  by  the  Pope,  and  the 
extent  of  reforms  was  reserved  for  his  decision. 

Again  and  again  in  the  council  was  it  asserted  that 
the  authority  of  the  Pope  was  indisputable  and  invio- 
lable ;  and  that  by  appointment  of  God  he  was  above  all 
emperors  and  kings.  If  Pius  IV.  was  too  sagacious  to 
hazard  the  newly-recovered  powers  of  the  curia  by  reviv- 
ing openly  the  struggle  with  temporal  princes  for  perma- 
nent sovereignty  over  their  subjects,  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  seize  the  occasion  of  the  council  for  making  his  sov- 
ereignty more  immediate  and  absolute  over  the  entire  hie- 
rarchy, the  bishops  being  severally  sworn  to  obey  the 
decrees  of  Trent  and  to  obey  the  Pope  as  their  master. 
But  the  claim  of  universal  jurisdiction  was  not  one  whit 
abated,  though  held  in  abeyance  for  its  opportunity. 
We  see  it  again  enforced  by  Clement  VIII.,  when  in 
presence  of  the  assembled  cardinals  and  a  multitude  of 
spectators  before  St.  Peter's,  King  Henry  VI.  of  France, 


60  PAPARCIIY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

in  the  person  of  his  ambassador,  prostrated  himself  at 
the  feet  of  the  Pope  to  receive  the  absolution  that  should 
confirm  him  in  his  throne ;  and  this  claim  was  pressed 
with  the  old  shameless  impudence  by  Paul  V.,  with  his 
fanatical  assertion  of  "  the  power  of  the  keys,"  and  by 
Gregory  XV.  with  his  magnificent  ambition  to  subdue 
the  world  to  the  church. 

On  the  other  side,  the  political  convulsions  and  the 
politico-religious  wars  of  the  Reformation  had  secured  to 
the  Protestant  princes  of  Germany  a  degree  of  territorial 
independence  and  of  personal  sovereignty  which  relieved 
them  in  part  of  vassalage  to  the  empire,  and  prepared  the 
way  for  that  distinctive  state  and  national  development 
which  marks  our  modem  civilization.  Thus  arose  the 
principle  of  an  independent  nationality  as  the  successor 
of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  —  which  was  now  reduced 
practically  to  a  German  kingdom  —  in  contesting  the 
claim  of  a  universal  paparchy.  The  Peace  of  Westphalia 
may  be  said  to  have  crystallized  these  two  forces  into  per- 
manent antagonism.  The  war  brought  nothing  to  an 
end  excepting  the  resources  of  the  country,  and  the  peace 
established  nothing  beyond  the  somewhat  vague  admis- 
sion of  the  equality  of  confessions,  or  the  recognition  by 
each  party  of  the  right  of  the  other  to  exist.  Against 
this  recognition  Innocent  X.  protested,  demanding  the 
restitution  of  all  Catholic  rights,  privileges,  and  posses- 
sions, as  these  had  stood  before  the  Reformation,  that  is, 
he  would  efface  all  the  conquests  of  Protestantism  by  a 
stroke  of  the  pen,  refusing  to  concede  to  Protestants  any- 
thing of  ecclesiastical  possessions  or  to  enter  into  treaty 
with  Protestant  princes.  The  Peace  of  Westphalia  he 
declared  to  be  null  and  void,  vacating  it  by  his  absolute 
prerogative.^     Against  this,  however,  the  parties  to  the 

1  The  bull «'  Zelo  domus  Dei,"  dated  November  26, 1648,  published 
January  8,  1651 :  —  "  Ipso  jure  nulla,  irrita,  invalida,  iniqua,  injusta, 


PEACE  OF   WESTPHALIA.  61 

peace  had  provided,  declaring  beforehand  that  no  regard 
should  be  had  to  any  one,  whether  of  ecclesiastical  or  po- 
litical station,  within  or  without  the  empire,  who  should 
oppose  its  articles.! 

So  stood  the  powers,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  in  1648  — 
on  the  one  hand,  the  idea  of  the  state  as  an  independent, 
self-sufficient  organism,  which* brings  within  its  scope  all 
the  functions  and  interests  of  society,  judicial,  political, 
industrial,  educational,  and  religious ;  on  the  other  hand, 
the  idea  of  the  church  as  centred  in  Rome,  and  from 
that  seat  of  inalienable  and  indivisible  authority  issuing 
to  the  faithful  in  every  land  laws  paramount  to  all  tem- 
poral authority  whatsoever,  and  holding  such  authority 
under  control  and  rebuke  by  virtue  of  a  divine  preroga- 
tive. The  first  idea,  so  counter  to  tradition,  to  prejudice, 
and  to  usage,  had  for  its  development  but  little  adventi- 
tious help,  and  must  rely  mainly  upon  the  slowly-matur- 
ing processes  of  time  ;  whereas  the  second,  for  its  support 
and  propagation,  used  the  order  of  Jesuits,  which  had 
arisen  for  this  very  purpose,  and  which  had  already ,been 
a  chief  agent  in  restoring  to  the  Pope  so  large  a  portion 
of  the  spoils  of  the  Reformation.  Jesuitism  is  the  des- 
potism of  intolerance.  The  Reformation  had  assailed 
the  Catholic  unity  ;  Jesuitism  would  resist  the  Reforma- 
tion by  intensifying  that  unity  through  the  subordination 
of  all  persons,  parties,  interests  to  the  head  of  the  church. 
Protestantism  in  Germany  had  contended   for  spiritual 

daranata,  reprobata,  inania,  viribusque  et  effectu  vacua,  omnino 
fuisse,  esse,  et  perpetuo  fore.  .  .  .  Articulos  jirajfatos  aliaque 
praemissa,  potestatis  plentitudine  penitus  damnamus,  reprobamus 
.  .  .  cassamus,  annullamus,  viribusque  et  effectu  irritamus,  vacua- 
mus." 

^  "Non  attenta  cujusvis  seu  Ecclesiastici  seu  Politici,  intra  vel 
extra  Iinperium,  quocunque  tempore  iuterposiia  coatradictione  vel 
protestatione,  quaj  oiunes  inanes  et  nihil  vigore  horuiu  declarantur." 
See  in  Gieseler,  iv.  1,  note  18. 


62  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

freedom ;  Jesuitism  insisted  upon  the  annihilation  of  self- 
will,  and  its  absorption  in  the  will  of  a  superior,  who 
should  be  reverenced,  not  on  the  ground  of  his  wisdom 
or  his  goodness,  but  as  the  official  representative  of  God. 
Protestantism  had  revived  reason  as  a  judge  in  matters 
of  faith ;  Jesuitism  made  diversity  of  belief  a  sin,  and 
would  enforce  dogma  by  authority.  Protestantism  made 
much  of  conscience  as  a  criterion  of  duty ;  Jesuitism  made 
of  religion  a  power,  the  triumph  of  which  was  the  end  to 
be  had  always  in  view,  and  which  must  be  secured  by 
any  and  every  means,  even  by  the  sacrifice  of  conscience 
itself.^  The  principles  of  Jesuitism  are  wholly  irreconcil- 
able with  the  modern  conception  of  society  and  of  the 
state,  and  must  come  into  collision  with  that  theory  of 
national  autonomy  whose  germ  was  in  the  Protestant 
factors  of  the  Peace  of  Westphalia.  To  the  realization  of 
its  grand  and  startling  conception  of  a  universal  paparchy, 
Jesuitism  brought  the  discipline  of  an  army  and  the  mis- 
sionary zeal  of  the  Apostolic  age.  It  sought  to  control 
all  orders  and  functionaries  within  the  Catholic  Church, 
to  control  people  and  princes  through  education  and  di- 
plomacy, and  to  win  over  the  pagan  world  by  baptism  and 
the  sign  of  the  cross. 

The  spirit  of  liberty  is  essentially  unproselytizing ;  it 
trusts  to  liberty,  light,  and  truth.  But  Jesuitism  means 
propagandism  ;  and  hence,  while  the  spirit  of  national  lib- 
erty awakened  at  the  Reformation  has  advanced  only  by 
natural  causes  against  traditional  hindrances  and  political 
jealousies,  the  spirit  of  Jesuitism  has  maintained  unrest- 
ing and  unswerving  activity,  and  under  all  changes  and 
conditions  has  kept  in  view  the  putting  all  things  under 
the  feet  of  the  Pope,  and  then,  that  the  Pope  himself 

*  E.  de  Pressensd,  La  Lihertd  Religieuse  en  Europe,  p.  1 1  ;  see,  also, 
Der  Jesuiten  Orden,  von  D.  Joliannes  Iluber,  and  Geschichte  cler 
neusten  Jesuitenumtrlebe  in  DeutcMand,  von  Wolfgang  Meiizel. 


INCREASE  OF  PROTESTANTS.  63 

should  also  be  subject  unto  the  power  that  put  all  things 
under  him,  that  this  order  may  be  all  in  all.  The  na- 
tional element  has  had  upon  its  side  those  industrial  and 
economical  causes  and  laws  which,  under  the  free  spirit 
of  Protestantism,  further  the  growth  and  prosperity  of  a 
nation.  Thus,  within  our  own  century,  there  has  been 
in  Prussia  a  perceptible  growth  of  the  Protestant  popula- 
tion. On  the  authority  of  Hassel,  iu  the  year  1817  there 
were  in  Prussia  6,370,480  Protestants,  and  4,023,513 
Catholics  ;  ^  by  the  census  of  1867,  the  Protestants  or 
Evangelicals  in  Prussia  numbered  15,596,380,  the  Catho- 
lics 7,950,753.  Various  causes,  such  as  war,  emigration, 
and  the  like,  may  have  contributed  to  change  the  ratio 
between  the  Protestant  and  Catholic  populations,  but  the 
relative  increase  of  the  former  is  a  marked  fact  of  the 
past  fifty  years.  Yet  Prussia  has  been  preeminent  for 
adhering  with  fidelity  to  the  principle  of  confessional 
equality.  There  Catholics  have  had  equal  rights  with 
Protestants,  and  larger  donations  from  the  public  treas- 
ury. 

This  freedom  of  worship  and  this  favoritism  of  support 
accorded  to  the  Catholics  have  of  late  years  been  im- 
proved by  a  remarkable  activity  in  the  multiplication  of 
religious  orders,  foundations,  and  institutions  in  Prussia, 
especially  under  the  lead  of  the  Jesuits  and  their  mis- 
sions. In  Prussia,  between  the  years  1852  and  1861, 
the  number  of  convents  increased  from  79  to  185,  at  the 
rate  of  15  per  cent,  yearly.^  About  the  same  period 
there  was  a  marked  increase   of  convents  in  other  coun- 

^  Handhuch  der  neusten  Erdbeschreibung,  von  Gaspari  Hassel, 
und  Cannabich;  bearbeitet  von  D.  G.  Hassel,  1819.  By  the  same 
authority,  in  1817,  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Europe  numbered 
95,000,000,  including  Greek  and  Armenian  adherents;  the  Prot- 
estants 47,000,000,  the  Greek  Church  in  Europe  32,000,000,  the 
Mohammedans  3,600,000,  and  the  Jews  2,000,000. 

'  Hausner,  Vergleichende  Stalisiik  von  Europa,  18G5. 


64  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

tries  of  Europe.  In  France,  for  instance,  there  were 
4,750  in  1862,  against  2,592  in  1847,  an  increase  of  137 
every  year.  In  Belgium  in  1859  there  were  994,  against 
430  in  1830.  Throughout  Germany  during  this  period 
the  number  of  these  ecclesiastical  orders  had  so  increased 
that  there  was  a  member  of  some  order  for  every  481 
Catholics  in  the  population ;  and  it  was  a  fact  of  much 
significance  that  the  superiors  of  most  of  these  orders, 
having  absolute  authority  over  the  membership,  were 
foreigners,  residing  either  at  Rome  or  in  P" ranee,  and 
naturally  hostile  to  German  ideas  and  to  German  unity. 
The  facility  with  which  these  orders  were  multiplied  in 
Prussia,  and  the  privilege  accorded  them  of  establishing 
separate  schools  for  the  training  of  priests,  apart  from 
the  universities  with  their  rigorous  examinations,  —  a 
privilege  contrary  to  the  whole  educational  policy  of 
Prussia,  —  shows  with  what  fidelity  the  Prussian  gov- 
ernment had  adhered  to  the  Pact  of  Westplialia  ;  how 
even  more  than  just  Prussia  had  been  in  securing  to  her 
Catholic  subjects  the  full  measure  of  liberty  accorded  to 
Protestants.  In  Prussia  for  a  century  there  have  been 
no  "  Catholic  disabilities."  Jews  and  dissenters  have 
labored  under  disabilities,  legal  and  political ;  for  the 
Peace  of  Westphalia  secured  confessional  equality  only 
to  Roman  Catholics,  the  Lutherans,  and  the  Reformed 
or  Calvinists ;  and  notwithstanding  the  famous  saying  of 
Frederic  the  .Great,  that  "in  Prussia  every  man  shall  get 
to  heaven  after  his  own  fashion,"  dissenters  from  these 
three  recognized  confessions  have  had  no  help  from  the 
state,  but  rather  hindrance,  in  their  heavenward  pil- 
grimage. But  Roman  Catholics  have  had  only  help  — 
recognition,  money,  privilege,  place,  power;  they  have 
been  satisfied  with  their  position,  and  have  made  good 
use  of  their  opportunities. 

For  more  than  fifty  years  past  the  greater  part  of  the 


BISMARCK  AS  A  STATESMAN.  66 

Lutherans  and  the  Reformed  in  Prussia  have  been  com- 
bined in  one  church,  known  as  the  Evangelical  —  this 
and  the  Roman  Catholic  being  the  privileged  churches, 
with  the  exclusive  countenance  and  support  of  the  state  ; 
and  of  this  countenance  in  the  way  of  official  dignity  and 
consideration,  and  this  support  in  the  way  of  substantial 
endowments  and  grants,  during  this  century  the  Romish 
Church  has  had  the  lion's  share. 

Meantime  the  idea  of  nationality  had  been  slowly 
crystallizing  itself  out  of  the  ferment  of  wars,  revolu- 
tions, compacts,  and  policies  which  the  Napoleonic  era 
had  stirred  in  the  whole  continent.  Prussia  had  suf- 
fered under  long  humiliation;  Germany  had  been  di- 
vided into  hostile  camps ;  poets,  visionaries,  revolution- 
ists, socialists,  diplomatists  had  made  abortive  attempts 
at  German  unity  —  now  under  the  fiction  of  a  republic, 
and  again  under  the  hardly  less  fictitious  shadow  of  an 
empire.  But  at  length  the  man  arose  who  could  divine 
the  true  solution  of  the  problem  —  who  had  the  courage 
to  attempt  this,  and  the  sagacity  to  accomplish  it. 
Prince  Bismarck  is  one  of  those  rare  men  who  combine 
prescience  and  providence  in  respect  of  events  with  an 
intuition  of  men  and  of  motives,  and  an  executive  will 
equal  to  any  emergency.  It  may  be  questioned  whether 
he  has  a  policy,  either  in  the  higher  sense  of  a  pro- 
nounced system  of  administration,  or  in  the  inferior  sense 
of  expediency  in  management.  His  state-craft  is  not  of 
the  order  so  much  approved  in  England  and  in  the 
United  States,  that  works  by  a  definite  programme  or 
platform  of  ideas  and  measures  ;  nor  of  the  fashion  of 
France,  that  seeks  to  govern  by  a  theory  without  regard 
to  facts ;  but  with  a  keen  outlook  upon  events,  and  a 
foresight  of  tendencies,  he  is  quick  to  seize  or  to  shape 
whatever  may  serve  his  immediate  purpose,  and  resolute 
to  bring  both  men  and  things  within  the  scope  of  his 
5 


66  PAP  ARC  HY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

plan  without  prematurely  unveiling  it.  This  habit  of 
using  events,  men,  occasions  for  his  undei'lying  purpose, 
causes  him  sometimes  to  appear  variable  in  his  methods 
and  in  his  relations  to  parties  —  now  conservative,  now 
liberal  ;  now  conciliating  the  Catholic  hierarchy,  and 
now  ruling  it  with  an  iron  hand.  But  this  mutability  is 
only  the  eddying  on  the  surface ;  the  deep  undercurrent 
moves  steadily  onward.  The  key  to  Bismarck's  pol- 
itics is  given  in  these  words — devotion  to  the  unity  of 
Germany  as  the  supreme  good  of  Germany  hei'self,  and 
as  the  best  guarantee  of  the  peace  and  prosperity  of 
Europe.  Bismarck  saw  that  the  ideal  of  one  Germanic 
nation  —  the  dream  of  her  poets,  the  aspiration  of  her 
patriots,  the  vague  longing  of  her  people  —  was  not  to 
be  attained  through  any  combination  of  German  poli- 
tics, as  these  stood  when  he  came  into  power.  No  arti- 
ficial bund,  no  conventional  empire,  could  make  a  united 
Germany.  It  was  necessary  first  to  remove  from  Ger- 
many the  incubus  of  Austrian  supremacy  —  a  domina- 
tion narrow,  selfish,  bigoted  in  proportion  as  it  was  weak, 
and,  in  a  measure,  alien ;  and  next  it  was  necessary  to 
emancipate  Germany  from  the  traditional  superiority  of 
France,  and  to  secure  her  against  the  dread  of  French 
invasion.  To  this  end  he  saw  that  the  first  requisite  was 
strength  —  the  actual  material  strength  of  arms,  and  the 
moral  strength  that  comes  by  victory.  Reversing  the 
motto,  "in  union  is  strength,"  he  sought  union  by 
strength ;  first  strong,  then  united  and  free.  Germany 
must  have  a  leader  strong  enough  to  inspire  her  confi- 
dence, to  hold  her  adversaries  in  check,  and  to  command 
the  respect  of  all  European  powers.  And  this  leader 
could  be  found  only  in  Prussia ;  Prussia  reacting  from 
the  humiliations  of  more  than  half  a  century,  to  emulate 
the  days  of  the  great  Frederic ;  Prussia,  organized  into  a 
camp,  and  drilled  to  her  last  man  ;   Prussia,  equipped 


WARS  OF  1866  AND  J870.  67 

with  the  best  weapons,  officered  by  the  best  generals, 
and,  above  all,  led  by  the  soldier-king,  who  had  the  con- 
fidence and  affection  of  the  truly  national  army  which  he 
had  done  so  much  to  form  and  to  discipline. 

Whether  Bismarck  planned,  provoked,  or  precipitated 
the  wars  with  Austria  and  with  France,  must,  perhaps 
forever,  lie  buried  with  the  mysteries  of  diplomacy ;  it  is 
enough  that  the  displacement  of  these  two  powers  was 
necessary  to  his  conception  of  a  united  Germany  ;  that 
he  foresaw  the  contingency  of  these  conflicts,  was  on  the 
alert  for  both,  and  was  prepared  at  every  point  when  the 
moment  came.  And  with  each  stroke  of  victory  he 
made  a  stride  for  unity,  creating  the  North  German 
Bund  out  of  the  triumphs  of  Koniggratz,  and  annealing 
the  German  empire  in  the  furnace  in  which  the  dross  of 
the  French  empire  was  consumed. 

The  question  of  religion  did  not  enter  at  all  into  the 
wars  of  1866  and  1870.  These  were  wars  for  German 
nationality  —  to  free  Germany  from  foreign  dictation, 
and  to  combine  all  the  states  into  one  nation.  Though 
the  constitution  of  the  German  empire,  like  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  expressly  reserves  to  the  sev- 
eral states  certain  prescriptive  rights,  and  though  the 
imperial  government  at  Berlin,  like  the  national  gov- 
ernment at  Washington,  is  a  government  of  limited 
powers,  yet  there  is  now  a  Qermany^  with  its  emperor, 
its  parliament,  its  army,  its  navy,  its  postal  service,  its 
code  and  courts,  its  diplomatic  corps,  its  national  policy 
—  a  constitutional  empire  with  an  hereditary  sovereign 
in  the  person  of  the  King  of  Prussia ;  an  empire  with  a 
population  of  forty-one  millions,  in  the  heart  of  Europe, 
capable  of  defending  itself  against  any  enemy  without, 
and  of  dictating  peace  to  its  neighbors.  In  a  word,  here 
is  the  idea  of  nationality  realized  in  a  people  of  one  lan- 
guage, one  country,  one  government,  one  policy,  one  des- 
tiny. 


68  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

The  German  empire,  as  such,  has  no  religion.  Its 
constitution  has  no  provision  concerning  churches  or  con- 
fessions—  these  are  left  under  the  jurisdiction  of  local 
laws  in  the  several  states.  And  yet  the  creation  of  this 
empire  has  been  the  occasion  of  an  ecclesiastical  contro- 
versy in  Prussia,  that  seems  almost  to  threaten  a  relig- 
ious war.  This  state  of  things,  however,  was  not  planned 
by  Bismarck,  and  does  not  seem  to  have  been  appre- 
hended by  him,  until  the  ultramontanes  had  openly 
manifested  their  hostility  to  the  empire.  Perhaps  the 
severity  of  his  measures  is  due,  in  part,  to  the  fact,  that 
he  awoke  a  little  too  late  to  the  real  and  pressing  danger 
of  the  case;  yet  even  should  we  allow  the  criticism  of 
Von  Arnim  and  his  friends  upon  Bismarck's  earlier  indif- 
ference or  leniency  toward  the  usurpations  of  Rome,  we 
must  still  concede  to  the  chancellor  the  merit  of  sin- 
cerity in  his  consideration  for  the  German  Catholic  bish- 
ops down  to  the  time  of  their  concerted  hostility  to  the 
German  empire.  We  incline,  however,  to  the  opinion 
that  Bismarck's  sagacity  was  not  at  fault  in  declining 
Von  Arnim's  counsel,  but  that  upon  broader  grounds  he 
was  reluctant  to  enter  the  arena  of  politico-ecclesiastical 
strife ;  and  it  is  an  open  secret  that  the  emperor  sought 
to  avert  such  a  strife  by  any  means  consistent  with  the 
dignity  and  authority  of  the  state.  In  any  case  the 
contest  began  on  the  other  side.  While  the  principle  of 
Nationality  was  striding  toward  its  consummation  in 
Germany,  the  principle  of  the  Paparchy,  as  embodied  in 
Jesuitism,  had  already  triumphed  at  Rome,  in  the  pro- 
mulgation of  infallibility  and  the  indorsement  of  the  syl- 
labus ;  the  one  subjugating  the  Catholic  hierarchy  to  the 
absolute  will  of  the  Pope,  the  other  setting  the  papacy 
in  open  and  irreconcilable  hostility  to  modern  society. 
Between  this  usurping  paparchy  and  the  nationality  al- 
most simultaneously  perfected  in  Germany  and  in  Italy, 


THE   VON  ARNIM  CORRESPONDENCE.  69 

a  collision  was  inevitable.  Bismarck  did  nothing  to 
bring  it  on,  and  could  do  nothing  to  avert  it.  The  times 
and  tendencies  were  stronger  than  he.  The  truce  of 
Westphalia  was  at  an  end ;  the  unsettled  conflict  must 
break  out  anew ;  the  battle  between  the  spiritual  and 
temporal  powers  must  be  fought  over  upon  the  soil  of 
the  Reformation.  So  far  was  Bismarck  from  crippling 
the  Roman  hierarchy  in  Germany  as  a  means  of  resist- 
ing papal  usurpation,  that  at  first  he  sought  rather  to 
strengthen  the  hierarchy  in  its  relations  with  the  Prus- 
sian state.  This  fact  the  publication  of  the  Von  Arnim 
correspondence  has  fully  revealed.  Before  the  meeting 
of  the  Vatican  Council,  the  bishops  of  Germany  assem- 
bled at  Fulda  —  the  tomb  of  the  Holy  Boniface  —  and 
issued  a  pastoral,  in  which  they  virtually  repudiated  the 
programme  attributed  to  the  ultramontanes :  — 

"  A  general  council  never  did  and  never  can  establish  a 
dogma  not  contained  in  Scripture,  nor  in  the  apostolical  tradi- 
tions. A  general  council  never  did  and  never  can  proclaim 
doctrines  in  contradiction  to  the  principles  of  justice,  to  the 
rights  of  the  state  and  its  authorities,  to  culture  and  the  true 
interests  of  science,  or  to  the  legitimate  freedom  and  well-being 
of  nations.  Neither  need  any  one  fear  that  the  general  coun- 
cil will  thoughtlessly  and  hastily  frame  resolutions  which  need- 
lessly would  put  it  in  antagonism  to  existing  circumstances, 
and  to  the  wants  of  the  present  times  ;  or  that,  in  the  manner 
of  enthusiasts,  it  would  endeavor  to  transplant  into  the  present 
times,  views,  customs,  and  institutions  of  times  gone  by." 

The  government  of  Bavaria  early  took  alarm  at  the 
prognostic  signs  of  the  Vatican  Council,  and  the  theo- 
logical faculty  of  Munich  reported  to  the  government 
that  the  syllabus,  if  accepted  by  the  council,  either  in 
its  original  negative  form  or  in  the  positive  redaction  of 
Father  Schrader,  must  lead  to  serious  changes  in  the  re- 
lations between  the  church  and  the  state.     Count  Von 


70  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

Arnim,  who  represented  Prussia  at  Rome  during  the 
council,  was  of  the  same  opinion,  and  recommended  to 
his  government  some  active  intervention  in  tlie  council, 
or  a  remonstrance  with  the  Pope  in  person  ;  but  Bis- 
marck steadily  refused  to  meddle  with  the  council,  or  to 
attempt  a  moral  coercion  in  respect  to  any  of  its  deci- 
sions, and  adhered  to  the  policy  of  sustaining  the  Ger- 
man bishops  in  the  opposition  to  ultramontanism,  which 
they  had  foreshadowed  at  Fulda.  When  these  bishops 
all  succumbed  to  the  ultramontane  majority  in  the 
council,  and  came  back  to  Germany  to  proclaim  infalli- 
bility as  a  dogma,  and  to  carry  out  the  teachings  of  the 
syllabus,  it  was  not  Bismarck  but  they  that  had 
changed.  Nevertheless,  they  would  have  been  allowed 
in  peace  to  hold  the  new  dogmas,  had  they  not  set  out  to 
use  these,  and  suffered  themselves  to  be  used,  as  instru- 
ments against  the  lawful  authority  of  the  state,  and  es- 
pecially against  the  empire,  so  soon  as  this  came  into 
form.^ 

From  the  moment  that  the  victory  of  Koniggriitz  ex- 
pelled Austria  from  the  field  of  German  politics,  and 
placed  a  Protestant  power  at  the  head  of  a  new  German 
confederation,  the  ultramontanes  began  to  show  their 
hostility  to  Prussian  ascendency  and  to  the  scheme  of  a 
Germanic  empire.  So  bitter,  intense,  and  powerful  was 
that  hostility  in  Bavaria,  that  her  government  came 
within  one  of  refusing  to  join  the  Northern  States  in  the 
war  with  France.* 

Ultramontanism  was  already  a  political  power  organ- 
ized to  uphold  the  paparchy,  even  at  the  cost  of  the 
Fatherland.  The  proclamation  of  Napoleon  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  war  showed  that  he  counted  upon  the  neutral- 

*  See  note  on  Count  Von  Arnim,  at  the  end  of  this  article. 

*  It  was  literally  by  a  bare  majority  of  one,  that  the  Bavarian 
House  voted  to  make  common  cause  with  the  rest  of  Germany. 


ULTRAMONTANE  HOSTILITY.  "  71 

ity,  if  not  the  cooperation,  of  the  South  German  States ; 
and  the  ultramontane  press  gave  him  reason  to  suppose 
that  he  could  depend  upon  the  sympathy  of  those  states 
with  Catholic  France  against  Protestant  Prussia.  The 
peril  of  that  internal  discord  which  had  so  often  made 
Germany  the  battlefield  of  Europe,  led  Bismarck  to  urge 
at  Versailles  the  consummation  of  German  unity,  while 
the  fires  of  patriotism  were  aglow  with  victory  ;  but  this 
empire  at  once  became  the  mark  of  ultramontane  hate 
through  the  press,  the  pulpit,  and  the  party  of  the  Centre 
in  Parliament^ —  a  hatred  now  organized  in  the  "  Catho- 
lic Unions,"  that  set  the  church  above  the  state.  But 
in  assailing  the  empire  they  touched  the  apple  of  Bis- 
marck's eye,  since  both  his  policy  and  his  patriotism  sub- 
ordinate Prussia  itself  to  Germany.  His  view  is  broad 
enough  for  an  empire. 

Now,  this  feature  of  Bismarck's  politics  is  distasteful 
to  Prussians  of  the  "old  line."  The  bureaucratic  sys- 
tem, in  which  day  by  day  and  year  by  year  each  subor- 
dinate officer  worked  out  his  prescribed  details,  and  gov- 
ernment went  on  like  an  automatic  machine,  was  to  these 
high  conservatives  the  perfection  of  the  state  ;  and  they 
were  at  first  scandalized  at  the  notion  of  an  imperial 
chancellor  who  would  govern  not  by  red-tape  but  by 
personal  ideas  and  forces,  would  make  of  government  a 
living  power  animated  and  pervaded  with  his  own  spirit, 
would  assert  strength  of  will  against  the  stolid  routine 
of  facts  and  precedents,  would  set  the  larger  interests 
of  Germany  above  the  traditions  of  Prussia,  would  re- 
model the  Prussian  Foreign  Office,  the  Ministries  of  War 
and  of  Marine,  and  even  the  interior  economies  of  Prus- 
sia, to  meet  the  new  conditions  of  the  empire ;  and,  worst 

^  For  proof  of  the  hostility  of  the  ultramontanes  to  the  empire, 
see  Geschichte  der  neusten  Jesuitenumtriebe  in  Deutschland,  von  Wolf- 
gang Menzel. 


72  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

of  all,  who  would  even  invoke  the  fickle  and  perilous  sup- 
port of  the  people  and  the  press.  "  Baggage-master  "  is 
the  title  given  on  American  railways  to  the  official  who 
superintends  the  luggage-vans  and  sees  that  all  luggage 
is  duly  ticketed  and  cared  for,  and  fitly  delivered ;  but 
"  hsiggfige-smasher  "  is  the  epithet  he  sometimes  receives 
when,  in  the  hurry  of  quitting  one  station  for  the  next, 
he  pitches  out  luggage  in  a  promiscuous  manner,  careless 
of  damage  to  trunks  or  to  toes.  So,  when  this  new  mas- 
ter took  things  in  hand,  in  the  hurry  of  movement  from 
Diippel  to  Koniggratz,  from  Koniggriitz  to  Sedan,  from 
Sedan  to  Paris,  it  was  no  wonder  that  old-fashioned, 
slow-coach  conservatives  were  startled  at  the  way  in 
which  the  luggage  of  traditions  and  precedents  was  tossed 
about ;  and  certainly  a  good  deal  of  lumber  and  trump- 
ery was  smashed  as  the  new  imperial  train  got  under 
way.  But  ready  as  Bismarck  was  and  is  to  bend  or 
break  everything  to  his  own  quick,  imperious,  and  reso- 
lute will,  he  did  not  lay  hands  upon  the  Roman  hierar- 
chy until  they  had  assailed  the  empire  with  intrigue, 
and  had  defied  the  laws.  If  now  he  has  pitched  them 
over  with  seeming  violence,  it  is  because  the  train  must 
move  on  ;  and  this  train  of  events  is  impelled  by  a  power 
higher  than  the  chancellor,  higher  and  stronger  than  any 
man. 

The  time  has  fully  come  when  the  question  must  be 
settled  for  the  whole  future  of  society.  Whether  each 
nation  shall  make  its  own  laws,  rule  its  own  subjects,  de- 
termine its  own  policy,  subject  only  to  the  law  of  justice 
within  and  to  the  comity  of  nations  from  without,  or 
whether  an  ecclesiastical  power  shall  be  recognized  as 
higher  than  all  governments,  and  competent  to  dictate, 
to  revise,  and  even  to  annul  their  acts  by  the  personal 
will  of  a  man  who  claims  to  be  the  infallible  medium 
and  expounder  of  the  will  of  God  ?     To  understand  the 


THE  POWER  OF  THE  POPE.  78 

question  as  it  lies  in  Germany,  one  has  but  to  ask  him- 
self whether  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  and  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  shall  pause  on  the  eve  of 
every  act  to  inquire,  Will  this  be  approved  or  allowed  by 
the  Pope  of  Rome  ? 

Some  affect  to  think  that  there  is  no  longer  reason  to 
fear  the  aggressions  of  Rome ;  that  Bismarck  exaggerated 
the  danger  to  Germany  from  ultramontanism,  and  ap- 
pealed to  political  fears  and  religious  prejudices  to  cover 
his  ambitious  designs ;  that  he,  in  fact,  restored  the  pa- 
pacy to  vitality,  and  converted  infallibility  from  a  theo- 
logical juggle  into  a  political  weapon,  by  the  consequence 
he  gave  to  what  he  himself  has  pithily  styled,  "  The 
Church  of  the  Vatican."  But  in  reality  the  personal 
power  of  the  Pope  within  the  Romish  Church  was  never 
so  immediate  nor  so  absolute  as  it  is  to-day.  Wherever 
the  movement  of  modern  society  has  unhinged  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  from  the  state,  it  has  thrown  the  hierar- 
chy into  personal  dependence  upon  the  Pope.  The  bishop 
who  can  no  longer  fall  back  upon  a  powerful  prince  or 
patron  to  support  his  independence  receives  implicitly 
the  mandates  of  Rome.  And  the  doctrine  that  the  Pope 
is  the  supreme  and  infallible  autocrat  of  the  church  and 
of  the  world,  which  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  the  ambi- 
tious assumption  of  individual  pontiffs,  is  now  obligatory 
as  a  dogma  of  the  church  upon  every  true  Catholic.  All 
faith  and  all  authority  are  centred  in  him,  and  the  whole 
hierarchy  hangs  upon  him,  and  is  the  instrument  of  his 
will.  Ten  years  ago,  speaking  as  for  the  Pope,  Dr. 
Manning  put  into  his  mouth  these  words :  — 

"  I  acknowledge  no  civil  power ;  I  am  the  subject  of  no 
prince ;  and  I  claim  more  than  this  —  I  claim  to  be  the  su- 
preme judge  and  director  of  the  consciences  of  men,  of  the 
peasant  that  tills  the  fields  and  of  the  prince  that  sits  upon  the 
throne ;  of  the  household  that  live  in  the  shade  of  privacy  and 


74  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

the  legislator  that  make  laws  for  kiDgdoms ;  I  am  the  sole,  last 
supreme  judge  of  what  is  right  and  wrong."  ^ 

If,  ten  years  ago,  this  seemed  a  rhetorical  extrava- 
gance, to-day  one  must  accept  Dr.  Manning's  testimony 
that  "  the  Holy  See  is  ultramontane,  the  whole  episco- 
pate is  ultramontane,  the  whole  priesthood,  the  whole 
body  of  the  faithful  throughout  all  nations,  excepting 
only  a  handful  here  and  there,  of  rationalistic  or  liberal 
Catholics  —  all  are  ultramontanes.  Ultramoutanism  is 
Popery,  and  Popery  is  Catholicism."  ^ 

This  compact,  unified  power,  seeking  always  its  own 
supremacy,  is  ready  in  France  to  ally  itself  with  legiti- 
mists or  imperialists  ;  in  Germany,  with  social  democrats 
or  with  Polish  revolutionists ;  in  Spain,  to  bless  the  Car- 
list  banditti  ;  in  the  United  States,  to  work  by  free 
schools  or  against  them  ;  and  in  every  land,  whether 
through  the  laws,  behind  the  laws,  under  the  laws,  or 
over  the  laws,  to  seize  its  own  opportunity. 

The  conflict,  which  we  have  seen  to  be  historical  and 
inevitable,  involves  the  profoundest  political  and  ethical 
principles,  and  admits  of  no  evasion  or  compromise. 
There  are  three  theories  of  the  constitution  of  human  so- 
ciety in  relation  to  government  and  religion,  or  to  state 
and  church.  The  first  is  the  theory  that,  inasmuch  as 
the  divine  is  superior  to  the  human,  the  spiritual  to  the 
physical,  the  eternal  to  the  temporal,  all  the  institu- 
tions of  society  should  be  ordered  and  controlled  with 
respect  to  man  as  a  religious  being — that  is,  the  church 
should  direct  human  society  not  only  in  matters  of  faith 
and  morals,  but  in  education,  in  laws,  in  government. 
This  was  the  theory  of  Rome  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  it 
is  now  revived  in  the  syllabus.     The  second  theory  is, 

*  Sermon  in  the  Pro- Cathedral,  Kensington,  Tablet,  October  9, 
1864. 
'  Sermons  on  Ecclesiastical  Subjects. 


CONFLICTING  THEORIES  OF  SOCIETY.  75 

that  man  exists  for  the  state ;  that  the  state  has  a  de- 
mand upon  the  subject  for  his  supreme  allegiance,  and 
should  train  and  govern  him  for  its  own  service  alike  in 
peace  and  in  war ;  and,  therefore,  all  the  interests  of  soci- 
ety, material,  political,  educational,  religious,  must  be 
subjected  to  the  rule  of  the  state.  This  was  the  theory 
evolved  by  the  Protestant  states  of  the  Reformation,  and 
which  has  since  obtained  in  Germany. 

The  third  theory  is,  that  man  is  the  true  centre  about 
which  all  else  should  revolve ;  that  both  state  and  church 
should  exist  for  man,  be  administered  by  his  will,  and 
in  such  way  as  shall  best  promote  his  welfare.  This  is 
the  view  of  civil  society  in  the  United  States,  and  is,  to 
a  growing  extent,  the  practical  condition  of  society  in 
England. 

The  first  two  of  these  systems  have  come  into  collision 
in  Germany.  We  have  no  sympathy  with  either  as  a 
system  for  modern  society,  but  in  the  conflict  between 
the  two  we  plant  ourselves  unhesitatingly  on  the  side  of 
the  second,  upon  grounds  of  Scripture,  of  reason,  and  of 
experience ;  the  more  freely,  that  in  Germany  the  theory 
of  state  supremacy  and  state  supervision  does  not  meddle 
at  all  with  the  dogmas  of  the  church,  nor  with  modes  of 
worship  ;  does  not  interfere  in  the  least  with  confessional 
freedom ;  but  onlj''  insists  that  the  allegiance  which  is 
demanded  of  every  subject  shall  be  rendered  by  priest  as 
well  as  laic,  that  the  obedience  to  law  which  is  required 
of  every  citizen  shall  be  rendered  by  the  highest  ecclesi- 
astic as  well  as  by  the  meanest  boor,  and  that  the  scien- 
tific preparation  exacted  of  every  servant  of  the  govern- 
ment shall  be  made  also  by  the  clergy  under  its  pay. 

The  contending  systems  bring  the  paparchy  into  open 
conflict  with  the  ruling  power  in  the  state ;  but  underly- 
ing the  latter  is  also  the  nation  just  waking  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  new  life.     Now,  as  between  these  two  the 


76  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

teachings  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles  leave  us  but  one 
choice.  The  New  Testament  requires  that  the  Christian 
shall  be  a  loyal  subject  of  the  government  under  which 
he  lives.  "Let  every  soul  be  subject  unto  the  higher 
powers.  For  there  is  no  power  but  of  God  :  the  powers 
that  be  are  ordained  of  God :  whosoever  therefore  resist- 
eth  the  power,  resisteth  the  ordinance  of  God."  ^  Such 
is  the  general  principle;  and  there  are  also  special  in- 
junctions which  may  be  recommended  to  the  Pope  as  suc- 
cessor of  the  holy  Apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  in  preparing 
his  next  instructions  for  the  faithful  in  Germany.  The 
first  is  from  Peter :  "  Submit  yourselves  to  every  ordi- 
nance of  man  [i.  e.,  every  institution  of  government 
among  men,  avOpuyTTLirj  Kria-ci]  for  the  Lord's  sake :  whether 
it  be  to  the  king,  as  supreme  ;  or  unto  governors,  as  unto 
them  that  are  sent  by  him  for  the  punishment  of  evil 
doers,  and  for  the  praise  of  them  that  do  well.  As  free 
[i.  e.,  be  loyal,  not  in  the  servile  spirit  of  fear,  but  in  the 
free  spirit  of  Christian  love],  and  not  using  your  liberty 
for  a  cloak  of  maliciousness  [not  making  your  privileges 
in  the  church  a  cover  for  Jesuitical  plottings  against  the 
state].  Honor  all  men.  Love  the  brotherhood.  Fear 
God.  Honor  the  king."  ^  The  second  is  from  the  in- 
structions of  Paul  to  Titus  for  the  regulation  of  the  faith- 
ful in  Crete:  "  Put  them  in  mind  to  be  subject  to  princi- 
palities and  powers,  to  obey  magistrates."  ^  Like  all  the 
injunctions  of  the  Bible,  these  precepts  are  given  in 
broad  general  terms,  without  the  limitations  and  qualifi- 
cations of  ethical  philosophy  ;  but  it  is  enough  that  some 
of  them  were  given  under  the  bloody  rule  of  Nero.     Now 

'  Romans  xiii.  1,  2.  The  Apostle  here  lays  down  the  broad  doc- 
trine of  the  sovereignty  of  the  existing  government,  the  government 
de  facto  is  the  government  de  Jure  —  this  as  opposed  to  anarchy. 
He  does  not  here  consider  the  abstract  right  of  revolution. 

«  1  Peter  ii.  13-18.  *  Titus  iii.  1. 


CONSCIENCE,  ITS  NATURE  AND  ITS  SPIIERE.     77 

it  is  impossible  to  find  in  the  New  Testament  any  injunc- 
tions of  obedience  to  organized  ecclesiastical  power,^  like 
those  here  given  of  obedience  to  civil  government.  It  is 
not  ecclesiastical  authority,  nor  a  corporate  ecclesiastical 
institution,  but  the  personal  God  and  the  individual  con- 
science in  its  direct  personal  relations  with  God,  which  is 
set  over  against  an  unrighteous  demand  of  the  civil  au- 
thority in  that  crucial  motto  of  Peter,  "  We  ought  to 
obey  God  rather  than  men  ; "  ^  and  in  the  teaching  of 
Christ,  "  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are  Cae- 
sar's, and  unto  God  the  things  which  are  God's."  Of 
conscience  as  an  ecclesiastical  corporation,  or  of  con- 
science as  an  imputed  or  a  vicarious  faculty,  determined 
and  exercised  by  one  for  another,  the  ethics  of  the  New 
Testament  have  no  knowledge.  Peter  knew  of  a  con- 
science within  himself  that  should  obey  God  rather  than 
man,  but  he  never  demanded  a  conscience  in  others  that 
should  obey  himself  officially,  or  his  ecclesiastical  succes- 
sors, rather  than  submit  to  "  the  king  as  supreme."  This 
discrimination  between  conscience  as  a  personal  faculty 
by  which  each  soul  determines  for  itself  questions  of 
right  and  duty,  and  conscience  as  an  obligation  imposed 
by  external  authority,  is  vital  in  a  case  of  collision  be- 
tween the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical  powers.  The  civil 
government  cannot  claim  to  rule  the  conscience.  The 
subject  has  the  right  to  protest  in  conscience  against 
what  he  deems  an  unjust  or  an  immoral  law;  has  the 
right  to  decline  to  obey  what  he  deems  an  unrighteous 
law,  and  to  accept  and  suffer  the  penalty  of  disobedience. 
Society  must  recognize  this  right  as  one  that  may  be  nec- 
essary to  its  own  deliverance  from  an  unjust  law  or  a 

1  No  scholar  would  think  of  quoting  as  parallel  Heb.  xiii.  17, 
which  reads  strictly,  "  Follow  your  leaders,"  with  a  dutiful  respect 
and  deference  to  their  teaching  and  example. 

«  Acts  V.  29. 


78  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

tyrannical  government ;  society  cannot  afford  to  ignore 
that  protesting  conscience  which  has  made  patriots  glori- 
ous and  martyrs  immortal;  which  has  displayed  such 
moral  heroism  and  effected  such  wholesome  reform ;  — 
least  of  all  could  Germany  afford  to  obliterate  that  right 
of  a  protesting  conscience  which  Luther  consecrated  to 
her  emancipation,  when  he  said,  "  Hier  stehe  ich  !  Ich 
kann  nicht  anders  ;  Gott  Jiilf  miry 

Shakespeare,  as  ever,  has  here  given  us  the  finest 
philosophical  distinction  in  the  fewest  possible  words. 
*'  Every  subject's  duty  is  the  king's ;  but  every  subject's 
soul  is  his  own."  ^  Conscience  and  Christianity  make 
loyalty  to  government  a  duty ;  yet,  as  between  soul  and 
state,  there  can  be  no  question  that  a  man  must  be  loyal 
to  his  own  soul  at  whatever  cost.  The  personal  con- 
science, even  when  deluded,  should  be  treated  with  ten- 
derness ;  and  though  society  must  protect  itself  against 
a  fanaticized  conscience,  it  should  not  assail  the  faculty 
to  remedy  its  morbid  conditions.  But  a  factitious  con- 
science which  puts  forward  obligation  to  an  ecclesiastical 
authority  within  the  state  or  without  it  as  higher  than  al- 
legiance to  the  state,  society  cannot  afford  to  parley  with, 
nor  to  recognize  as  entitled  to  any  concession.  Such  an 
antagonistic  sovereignty  would  annihilate  social  order. 

Here  reason  stands  by  the  New  Testament  in  teaching 
that,  in  a  collision  between  the  state  and  any  organized 
ecclesiastical  power,  the  higher  allegiance  is  due  to  the 
state.  Some  form  of  civil  government  is  indispensable 
to  the  existence  of  human  society.  Without  this  all  is 
anarchy.  But  there  is  no  form  of  church  organization 
the  maintenance  of  which  is  essential  to  human  society, 
however  important  religion  as  a  soul-faith  may  be  to 
social  order ;  and  the  assertion  of  sovereignty  in  affairs 
for  an  ecclesiastical  authority  is  a  constant  menace  to 
*  King  Henry  F.,  act  IV.  scene  1. 


SOVEREIGNTY  OF  THE  STATE.  79 

that  organic  condition  of  society  which  we  call  the  state. 
The  claim  of  a  divine  prerogative  vested  in  a  person  or  a 
power  apart  from  the  constituted  government  to  super- 
vise that  government  and  its  laws,  to  define  the  limits  of 
obedience,  and  to  absolve  subjects  from  allegiance,  is 
destructive  of  all  order  and  authority  in  the  state,  and 
must  reduce  society  to  anarchy.  The  instinct  of  self- 
preservation  is  for  the  civil  power  against  the  clerical. 

Experience  justifies  this  teaching  of  Scripture  and  of 
reason.  The  worst  tyranny  the  world  has  seen,  the 
most  atrocious  persecutions  that  history  records,  have 
sprung  from  ecclesiastical  power,  or  from  the  temporal 
power  as  wielded  by  and  for  the  spiritual.  The  civil 
power  tyrannizes  or  persecutes  from  motives  of  interest 
or  expediency ;  but  the  ecclesiastical  adds  to  these  that 
most  terrible  weapon  of  cruelty  —  the  claim  of  a  divine 
warrant  for  extirpating  its  enemies  as  the  enemies  of 
God.  Who  would  not  rather  take  his  chances  as  a 
Christian  under  the  bloody  Diocletian,  than  as  a  Chris- 
tian reformer  under  the  remorseless  Alva  ?  No  inquisi- 
tion was  ever  invented  in  the  service  of  the  civil  power 
alone. 

Upon  every  ground,  then,  of  Scripture,  of  reason,  of 
society,  of  history,  and  of  humanity,  we  are  moved  to 
side  with  the  civil  against  the  ecclesiastical  power,  in  a 
conflict  for  sovereignty  within  the  state.  The  harshest 
measures  of  the^  civil  power  in  resisting  ecclesiastical  en- 
croachment are  a  far  less  evil  than  is  the  bare  possibility 
of  ecclesiastical  supremacy  over  the  state.  In  the  state, 
or  rather  in  the  community  as  ordered  through  the  state, 
there  is  always  a  tendency  to  reaction  from  severe  meas- 
ures when  the  danger  that  provoked  these  is  over.  The 
state  justifies  its  severities  by  the  plea  of  self-protection. 
But  the  ecclesiastical  power  justifies  its  persecutions  by 
the  pleas  of  protecting  and  propagating  the  faith,  and  of 


80  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

executing  a  divine  prerogative  of  judgment  —  and  such 
motives  suffer  no  modification  nor  relaxation.  Formu- 
lated in  the  doctrine  of  infallibility,  and  incarnated  in 
the  person  of  the  Pope,  they  are  forever  irreconcilable 
with  the  autonomy  of  the  nation,  and  can  rest  only  with 
the  destruction  of  modern  society.  It  is  at  this  point 
that  Prussia  has  planted  herself  in  opposition  to  the  pa- 
parchy ;  and  though  her  own  theory  of  church  and  state 
is  far  from  perfect,  and  her  ecclesiastical  legislation  in 
some  particulars  is  not  to  be  commended,  yet  in  resisting 
ecclesiastical  encroachment  upon  civil  rights,  she  is 
maintaining  the  cause  of  nationalism,  and  defendhig  in- 
terests common  to  society  throughout  Christendom. 

The  contest  between  Protestantism  and  Romanism,  in 
respect  of  faith  and  discipline,  may  be  safely  left  to  the 
pulpit,  the  university,  and  the  press.  With  such  mat- 
ters the  recent  ecclesiastical  legislation  of  Prussia  has 
nothing  to  do.  Protestantism  would  but  weaken  itself, 
and  would  confess  the  weakness  of  its  own  principles  and 
position,  by  invoking  the  arm  of  the  state  to  protect  it 
against  the  spread  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church ;  and 
the  Prussian  government  would  weaken  itself  by  espous- 
ing Protestantism  as  against  Catholicism  through  its 
Ministry  of  Worship,  or  by  legislating  against  any  partic- 
ular sect  or  confession.  In  laws  affecting  the  rights,  the 
duties,  the  liberties  of  subjects,  no  government  can  show 
ecclesiastical  favoritism  without  weakening  the  tie  of  al- 
legiance to  itself.  This  the  Prussian  government  has  not 
done.  Its  recent  legislation  was  not  Protestant  in  its 
motive,  but  political.  Protestantism  would  be  too  nar- 
row a  basis  for  the  defense  of  the  state  and  the  nation 
against  the  paparchy.  This  is  of  no  less  moment  for  the 
unbeliever  and  the  Jew.  Rightly  considered,  the  Prus- 
sian ecclesiastical  laws  are  a  defense  of  Catholics  them- 
selves, in  the  freedom  of  their  faith  and  worship,  against 


CBURCn  AND  STATE  IN  PRUSSIA.  8l 

a  Roman  dictation  that  would  destroy  their  independence 
as  Germans,  and  obliterate  their  consciousness  of  nation- 
ality. As  Mr.  Gladstone  has  pithily  said,  '*  Individual 
servitude,  however  abject,  will  not  satisfy  the  party  now 
dominant  in  the  Latin  Church  :  the  state  must  also  be  a 
slave."  1 

But  why  not  determine  the  contest  in  Prussia  by  the 
immediate  separation  of  church  and  state  —  which  to  an 
English  nonconformist  and  to  an  American  Christian  of 
whatever  name  would  be  its  ready  and  proper  solution  ? 
Because  the  people  do  not  wish  that  solution ;  are  not 
ready  for  it ;  really  stand  in  dread  of  it.  Trained  as  the 
Prussians  are  to  dependence  upon  a  state  provision  for 
religion,  accustomed  to  the  impartial  support  of  both  the 
Evangelical  and  the  Roman  Catholic  churches  from  the 
public  treasury,  and  constitutionally  averse  to  sudden 
and  radical  changes,  they  have  no  desire  to  dissolve 
the  connection  between  church  and  state.  The  Roman 
Catholics  are  not  willing  to  relinquish  the  revenues  they 
derive  from  the  state,  nor  the  hope  of  political  ascend- 
ency in  some  change  of  the  ministry ;  and  Protestants 
fear  to  dissolve  the  existing  relation  of  the  church  to  the 
state,  lest,  on  the  one  hand,  rationalism  or  socialism 
should  control  a  large  proportion  of  the  parochial  prop- 
erty of  the  Evangelical  Church ;  and,  on  the  other  hand, 
Romanism  should  become  too  formidable  through  wealth 
and  organization  no  longer  subject  to  state  control.  No 
statesman  would  venture  to  force  a  dissolution  of  church 
and  state  in  the  present  state  of  public  opinion.  Ca- 
vour's  maxim,  "  A  free  church  in  a  free  state,"  does  not 
mean  that  the  church  should  be  free  to  conspire  against 
the  state.  Tenacious  as  we  are  of  church  independence, 
and  confident  as  we  are  of  the  resources  of  liberty  in  a 
fair  and  open  field,  we  will  not  blind  ourselves  to  the 

^  The  Vatican  Decrees,  p.  40;  also  p.  32, 
6 


82  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

fact  that  Germany,  threatened  with  the  revengeful  ha- 
tred of  France,  with  the  envy  of  Austria,  with  the  jeal- 
ousy of  Russia,  and  having  at  Rome  an  implacable  en- 
emy who  teaches  millions  of  her  subjects  that  to  disobey 
her  laws  is  their  duty  to  God  —  that,  thus  circum- 
stanced, the  new  composite  empire  of  Germany  is  in  a 
very  different  condition  for  experiments  of  "  the  largest 
liberty  "  from  England  in  her  insular  position,  or  the 
United  States  beyond  the  Atlantic.  Moreover,  "  let  not 
him  that  girdeth  on  his  harness  boast  himself  as  he  that 
putteth  it  off,"  and  the  United  States  may  yet  learn 
that,  to  cope  with  the  political  schemes  and  encroach- 
ments of  the  Roman  hierarchy,  liberty  must  equip  herself 
once  more  as  for  the  final  conflict  with  slavery. 

We  must  therefore  judge  Prussian  legislation  not  by 
English  theory  nor  by  American  practice,  but  by  the 
condition  of  Prussia  herself.  And  what  is  that  condi- 
tion? In  respect  of  intellectual  freedom  (^Freiheit  des 
Geistes^,  Prussia  is  in  advance  of  England  and  the 
United  States,  especially  in  the  sphere  of  theology. 
Here  she  knows  nothing  of  that  tyranny  of  the  press  and 
of  public  opinion,  which,  in  more  democratic  communi- 
ties, satisfies  the  craving  of  human  nature  for  some  form 
of  arbitrary  power.  But  in  respect  of  freedom  of  politi- 
cal action,  and  of  that  institutional  freedom  which  has 
grown  old  in  England,  and  with  which  the  United  States 
were  born,  Germany  until  a  very  recent  period  has  stood 
where  England  was  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago. 
The  reason  of  this  tardiness  of  development  in  Germany 
is  fitly  expressed  by  Mr.  Freeman :  "  On  the  Teutonic 
mainland,  the  old  Teutonic  freedom,  with  its  free  assem- 
blies, national  and  local,  gradually  died  out  before  the 
encroachments  of  a  brood  of  petty  princes.  In  the  Teu- 
tonic island  it  has  changed  its  form  from  age  to  age ;  it 
has  lived  through  many  storms,  and  it  has  withstood  the 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LA  WS  OF  PRUSSIA.  83 

attacks  of  many  enemies,  but  it  has  never  utterly  died 
out."  ^  Keeping  this  distinction  in  view,  one  must  judge 
the  recent  ecclesiastical  legislation  of  Prussia  by  the 
England  of  Elizabeth's  time,  as  to  its  motive  and  neces- 
sity, and  as  to  the  theory  of  state  control  in  church 
affairs  —  though  there  has  been  nothing  in  Prussia  so 
arbitrary  nor  so  severe  as  the  Act  of  Uniformity,  and  no 
attempt  to  coerce  any  man  in  respect  of  his  faith.  This 
will  help  us  to  account  for  a  legislation  which  we  could 
not  at  all  points  defend  :  the  exigency  is  one  in  which, 
as  in  time  of  rebellion,  the  preservation  of  the  larger  lib- 
erty of  society  requires  the  seeming  or  temporary  restric- 
tion of  the  liberty  of  the  individual  and  the  particular. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  enter  upon  a  minute  exami- 
nation of  the  new  ecclesiastical  laws.^  The  policy  that 
dictated  them,  the  principle  that  underlies  them,  and  the 
spirit  that  animates  them  are  more  relevant  to  this  dis- 
cussion than  are  forms  of  expression  or  modes  of  execu- 
tion. Now  the  motive  of  these  laws  is  not  to  restrain 
the  liberty  of  conscience,  of  faith,  or  of  worship  ;  not  to 
interdict,  nor  to  control  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  as  a 
religious  confession  and  communion  ;  not  to  enforce  uni- 
formity of  belief  or  of  worship,  nor  to  exalt  one  church 
above  another,  nor  to  interfere  in  any  wise  with  the  in- 
terior spiritual  discipline  of  the  churches ;  but  their  sole 
purpose  is  to  defend  the  nation  against  the  political  ac- 
tion of  a  hierarchy  that  would  destroy  both  its  unity  and 
its  sovereignty.  The  hierarchy  excommunicated  Catholic 
teachers  for  refusing  to  teach  in  the  state-schools  the  in- 

1  The  Growth  of  the  English  Constitution,  p.  18. 

2  111  illustration  of  the  legislative  policy  of  Prussia  respecting 
church  affairs,  the  reader  may  refer  to  the  recent  ecclesiastical  laws, 
and  to  an  exposition  of  the  same,  contained  in  the  volume  named 
at  the  head  of  this  article,  entitled  Ultramontanism :  England's 
Sympathy  with  Germany, 


84  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

fallibility  of  the  Pope  as  an  article  of  faith  ;  the  govern- 
ment hereupon  withdrew  from  the  clergy  the  old  privi- 
lege of  supervising  the  confessional  teaching  in  the  pub- 
lic schools ;  and  when  the  bishops  were  contumacious 
against  this  just  and  reasonable  measure,  the  government 
insisted  that,  as  beneficiaries  of  the  state,  the  bishops 
should  give  proofs  of  their  loyalty.  Finding  that  semina- 
ries for  the  training  of  priests,  supported  by  grants  from 
government,  were  controlled  by  ultramontanes  from  Italy, 
and  used  for  denationalizing  the  priesthood  and  making 
them  partisans  of  Rome  against  the  state,  the  government 
now  requires  of  the  clergy,  as  of  all  officials  in  the  bureaux 
of  state,  a  preparatory  training  in  a  state  gymnasium  and 
university,  i.  e.,  a  good  literary  and  scientific  education  ; 
and  also,  as  preliminary  to  induction  into  the  clerical 
office,  it  requires  evidence  of  such  education,  of  good 
character,  and  of  loyalty  to  the  state.  To  guard  against 
abuses  of  power  the  ecclesiastical  reformatories  are  placed 
under  state  inspection.  It  is  forbidden  to  use  church  dis- 
cipline for  political  ends,  or  for  the  injury  of  any  one  in 
his  person,  his  property,  or  his  liberty  ;  and  for  the  pro- 
tection of  the  inferior  clergy,  there  is  a  right  of  appeal  to 
a  state  tribunal  against  the  oppressions  of  ecclesiastical 
power.  One  may  also  withdraw  from  a  church  without 
censure  or  damage  by  notifying  the  proper  authorities. 
Such  is  the  general  scope  of  these  laws.  Many  of  their 
provisions  are  directly  for  the  protection  and  the  enlarge- 
ment of  liberty  ;  and  of  the  code,  as  a  whole,  it  must  be 
said,  though  some  of  its  demands  and  penalties  are  much 
too  stringent  for  our  times,  yet  its  plea  of  political  neces- 
sity is  sound  and  sincere. 

Roman  Catholics  are  barred  from  complaining  of  this 
legislation  ;  first,  because  laws  concerning  the  clergy,  sim- 
ilar to  those  of  Prussia,  have  long  existed  in  Oldenburg 
and  in  other  German  States  by  compact  with  the  Pope, 


ECCLESIASTICAL  LAWS  OF  PRUSSIA.  85 

and  what  the  papacy  has  assented  to  in  one  part  of  Ger- 
many cannot  be  "  against  God  and  the  church  "  in  an- 
other ;  and,  secondly,  as  Archbishop  Manning  knows 
well  enough,  should  temporal  power  be  restored  to  the 
Pope,  no  teacher  or  preacher  would  be  allowed  within 
the  Papal  States  except  under  far  more  stringent  condi- 
tions from  the  Holy  See,  and  any  departure  from  those 
conditions  would  be  visited  with  penalties  far  more  severe 
than  those  of  Prussian  law.  But  the  precedents  and 
animus  of  Roman  Catholic  legislation,  though  it  should 
shame  Romanists  into  silence  touching  "  the  persecution  " 
in  Prussia,  could  furnish  no  apology  for  religious  perse- 
cution, if  such  there  were.  Religious  persecution  there 
is  none,  though  political  proscription  and  penalty  are  in- 
flicted in  ways  that  violate  the  English  and  American 
sense  of  religious  liberty.  As  patron  and  paymaster  of 
the  church  the  Prussian  government  has  the  legal  right 
to  make  regulations  for  the  education  and  the  induction 
of  the  clergy,  precisely  as  the  Parliament  of  Great  Brit- 
ain has  reasserted  its  right  to  legislate  for  the  Church  of 
England,  to  regulate  public  worship  within  the  church, 
and  to  create  a  judge  of  ecclesiastical  causes.  Indeed  it 
may  be  fairly  said,  that  the  Public  Worship  Bill  comes 
much  nearer  than  the  Prussian  ecclesiastical  laws  to 
trenching  upon  private  judgment  and  liberty  of  con- 
science. The  Prussian  laws  do  not  touch  the  Roman 
Church  in  its  worship  or  its  internal  economy ;  they  deal 
with  the  church  only  at  points  where  it  comes  into  ex- 
ternal relations  with  the  state  ;  they  provide  that  the 
clergy  whom  the  state  supports  shall  be  Germans  by 
birth,  shall.be  intelligently  and  liberally  educated,  and 
shall  be  loyal  to  the  government.  Upon  the  Prussian 
system  of  church  and  state  —  a  system  by  which  the 
Roman  hierarchy  have  largely  profited,  and  which  they 
still  desire  to  retain  —  these  laws  are  strictly  defensible. 


86  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  the  penalties  of  criminal  of- 
fenses must  needs  be  applied  for  the  enforcement  of  such 
wholesome  regulations.  We  do  not  fancy  the  imprison- 
ment of  bishops  for  the  technical  offense  of  adhering  to 
old  concessions  and  usages  against  laws  made  since  their 
own  induction  into  office.  Yet  we  would  not  waste  much 
sympathy  upon  men  who  cling  to  the  revenues  of  their 
office,  but  refuse  to  comply  with  the  reasonable  condi- 
tions upon  which  those  revenues  are  granted  ;  men  who 
assail  the  laws  and  government  of  their  country,  at  the 
dictum  of  a  foreign  potentate,  and  fight  the  hand  that 
feeds  them. 

For  the  principle  at  stake  we  wish  Prince  Bismarck 
well  through  with  the  controversy  which  the  ultramon- 
tanes  have  forced  upon  him,  which  the  times  demand  of 
him,  and  in  which  he  is  the  representative  of  social  or- 
der and  civil  liberty.  We  have  sometimes  suspected 
that  he  had  not  taken  into  account  the  pertinacity  of 
religious  stubbornness,  especially  when  the  will  has  as- 
sumed the  office  of  conscience.  The  violent  declaration 
of  the  Catholic  Union  at  Mayence  against  the  German 
empire,  and  the  attempt  upon  his  life,  engendered  in 
this  atmosphere  of  religious  hate,^  show  how  earnest  is 
the  power  with  which  he  is  contending.  The  cause  of 
nationality  is  in  his  hands,  and  he  cannot  falter.  To 
compromise  would  be  to  fail.  The  nation  cannot  ask 
consent  of  the  Pope  to  be.  When  Austria,  Catholic  in 
court  and  people,  attempted  a  wholesome  reform  of  her 

1  "  And  blessed  shall  he  be  that  doth  revolt 
From  his  allegiance  to  an  heretic  ; 
And  meritorious  shall  that  hand  be  called, 
Canonized,  and  worship'd  as  a  saint, 
That  takes  away  by  any  secret  course 
Thy  hateful  life." 
Cardinal  Pandulph,  the  Pope's  Legate,  to  King  John.  —  King 
John,  act  III.  scene  1. 


BISMARCK  AND  ANDRASSY.  87 

8chool-law8,  the  Pope  anathematized  the  movement,  and 
required  his  bishops  to  resist  it  as  a  crime  against  the 
church.  In  his  reply  of  May  9,  1873,  Count  Andrassy 
expressed  his  regret  that  "  the  encyclical  should  have 
pronounced  a  condemnation  of  things  that  belong  to  the 
sovereign  domain  of  state  legislation  ;  "  and  he  added, 
"  if  the  clergy  do  not  obey  the  laws  which  have  been 
enacted  and  sanctioned,  the  government  will  consider  it- 
self bound  to  protect  the  rights  of  the  state,  and  is  con- 
vinced it  will  be  able  to  compel  respect  for  the  law." 
Could  the  Austrian  minister  have  done  less  ?  But  the 
note  of  Count  Andrassy  contains  the  very  principles  of 
Bismarck's  legislation,  and  the  ultramontanes  may  yet 
drive  Austria  into  the  Prussian  measures  of  defense. 
For  a  nation  to  allow  such  interference  with  its  internal 
legislation  would  be  to  vacate  sovereignty.  The  old 
historical  struggle  for  supremacy  has  reached  its  last 
stage,  a  struggle  between  paparchy  and  nationality,  the 
syllabus  and  society.  Inevitable,  fundamental,  the  con- 
flict must  now  be  uncompromising  and  final.  Happily, 
Prince  Bismarck  has  found  a  way  to  the  end,  by  vacat- 
ing the  sees  of  recusant  bishops,  and  turning  over  the 
administration  of  affairs  to  the  congregations  acting  un- 
der advisement  from  the  state.  The  process  may  be 
slow,  but  it  will  be  sure ;  the  result,  a  Catholic  Church 
in  Germany  that  is  not  of  Rome  ;  a  German  Catholic 
Church,  privileged,  though  not  established,  by  the  state, 
and  so  far  popularized  as  to  effect  within  the  church  it- 
self the  triumph  of  nationality  over  paparchy.  To  that 
triumph  all  Christian  nations  should  give  their  sympa- 
thy, — 

"  And  from  the  mouth  of  England 

Add  thus  much  more,  — that  no  Italian  priest 

Shall  tithe  or  toll  in  our  dominions  ; 

But  as  we  under  heaven  are  supreme  head, 

So  under  him,  that  great  supremacy 


88  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

Where  we  do  reign,  we  will  alone  uphold, 
Without  the  assistance  of  a  mortal  hand  : 
So  tell  the  Pope  :  all  reverence  set  apart 
To  him  and  his  usurp'd  authority."  * 


Note.  —  The  publication  of  official  letters,  written  by 
Von  Arnim  from  Rome  during  the  council,  was  the  first 
open  step  in  that  diplomatic  quarrel  which  has  given  to 
the  count  such  an  unenviable  notoriety.  Von  Arnim  is 
one  of  the  most  gifted,  accomplished,  versatile,  and  brill- 
iant men  that  the  Prussian  diplomatic  school  has  pro- 
duced ;  and  three  years  ago  his  advance  by  gradual  pre- 
ferment to  the  highest  post  in  the  empire  seemed  assured. 
But  he  sacrificed  his  opportunity  through  pride  of  opinion 
and  an  imperious  will  that  would  brook  no  contradiction 
nor  restraint  Admitting  that  he  had  a  clearer  insight 
than  Bismarck  into  affairs  at  Rome,  and  that  the  policy 
he  then  urged  has  been  justified  by  subsequent  events, 
this  surely  would  be  no  disparagement  to  Bismarck's 
sagacity.  Von  Arnim  was  sent  to  Rome  on  purpose  to 
ferret  out  the  intentions  of  the  ultramontanes,  and  to 
suggest  measures  for  thwarting  them.  But  when  he  had 
advised  Bismarck  of  the  tendencies  at  Rome  and  had 
proffered  his  suggestions,  his  responsibility  for  the  policy 
of  his  government  was  at  an  end,  and  his  duty  was  to 
carry  out  the  instructions  sent  from  the  Foreign  Office. 
Though  Von  Arnim's  counsel  was  not  followed  in  all 
particulars,  his  ability  was  recognized,  and  he  was  re- 
warded by  being  sent  to  Paris  upon  the  delicate  and  re- 
sponsible mission  of  representing  the  new  German  empire 
directly  after  the  war.  Here  again  he  seems  to  have  had 
a  policy  that  he  thought  wiser  than  the  policy  at  Berlin, 
to  have  attempted  to  dictate  to  the  chancellor,  then  to 

1  King  John,  act  III.  scene  1. 


^HE   VON  ARNIM  CONTROVERSY.  89 

have  appealed  to  the  king  against  the  policy  of  the  chan- 
cellor, and  finally  to  have  acted  upon  his  own  responsi- 
bility, regardless  of  the  views  of  the  Foreign  OflSce.  For 
this  he  was  rebuked  —  no  doubt  in  terms  somewhat  irri- 
tating to  one  of  his  haughty  spirit  —  and  was  finally  re- 
called. 

He  now  souglit  to  make  political  capital  for  himself 
out  of  his  differences  with  the  chancellor.  It  was  discov- 
ered that  important  papers  were  missing  from  the  ar- 
chives of  the  embassy  at  Paris,  and  the  publication  of 
Von  Arnim's  letters  from  Rome  gave  rise  to  the  suspi- 
cion that  a  similar  misuse  would  be  made  of  the  Paris 
correspondence.  Of  some  of  these  missing  papers  Von 
Arnim  declared  himself  ignorant ;  a  few  he  restored,  but 
others  he  retained,  on  the  plea  that  these  were  private 
papers,  necessary  to  his  own  vindication,  and  he  refused 
to  admit  any  claim  of  the  Foreign  Office,  either  upon  the 
papers  or  upon  himself  as  their  custodian. 

With  regard  to  semi-official  papers,  a  margin  of  dis- 
cretion must  be  conceded  to  an  ambassador.  The  prac- 
tice of  the  English  Foreign  Office  is  to  number  these  in 
the  regular  order  of  correspondence,  but  to  indorse  them 
*'  separate,"  so  that  they  do  not  enter  into  the  archives 
of  the  embassy.  But  in  the  case  of  Von  Arnim,  the 
papers  being  duly  registered,  it  could  not  be  left  to  him 
alone  to  decide  upon  their  character.  The  Foreign  Office 
was  clearly  a»party  in  the  case.  Had  he  frankly  sub- 
mitted the  papers  to  a  court,  agreeing  to  abide  by  its 
decision,  there  would  have  been  an  end  of  the  matter ; 
but,  after  fruitless  negotiations,  the  Foreign  Office  had 
no  resource  but  to  bring  the  affair  to  the  notice  of  the 
judiciary.  From  that  point  all  the  steps  were  by 
the  order  of  the  court,  and  in  conformity  to  the  laws. 
The  domiciliary  visits,  the  imprisonment  of  Von  Arnim 
without  bail,  and  without  an  open  hearing,  were  con- 


90  PAPARCHY  AND  NATIONALITY. 

trary  to  English  procedure ;  but,  stem  and  absolute  as 
the  Prussian  code  and  its  executors  may  appear,  the 
Prussian  courts  may  be  trusted  to  administer  the  law  im- 
partially, without  personal  or  political  bias. 

Whatever  may  be  the  final  judgment  upon  Von  Ar- 
nim's  action,  thus  much  has  been  gained  for  the  future 
of  diplomacy  in  Germany.  Persons  connected  with  the 
diplomatic  service  are  admonished  to  be  upon  their  guard 
against  official  indiscretions,  and  are  reminded  of  their 
amenability  to  their  superiors  and  to  the  laws.  The  dis- 
graceful practice  of  publishing  diplomatic  papers  for 
personal  ends  —  a  practice  that  might  easily  disturb  the 
peace  of  nations  —  has  received  a  salutary  clieck.  And, 
best  of  all,  the  power  of  the  law  to  deal  with  all  offenses, 
without  respect  of  persons,  is  triumphantly  vindicated. 
Bismarck  has  demonstrated  that  the  law  can  reach  an 
archbishop  or  an  ambassador,  as  well  as  an  assassin. 

But  to  return  to  the  Von  Arnim  correspondence  from 
Rome  ;  it  is  not  so  clear  that  in  this  the  count  was  wiser 
than  his  chief.  He  may  have  been  warped  by  influences 
around  him,  and  have  shared  the  excitements  and  pas- 
sions of  the  hour ;  whereas  Bismarck  could  survey  the 
whole  field  of  Germany  and  of  Europe.  As  yet  there 
was  no  German  empire ;  and  Bismarck  was  true  to  Prus- 
sian traditions  in  pledging  support  to  the  bishops  in  their 
loyalty  to  their  own  government.  This  whole  matter  is 
put  at  rest  by  the  testimony  of  the  eminent  Bavarian 
statesman  who  now  represents  Germany  at  Paris. 

Prince  Hohenlohe,  in  a  speech  at  Kulmbach  last  Oc- 
tober, returning  thanks  for  his  election  to  the  Reichstag, 
said,  — 

"  Great  astonishment  had  frequently  been  expressed,  that  a 
statesman  of  such  acuteuess  as  Prince  Bismarck  did  not  see  the 
approach  of  the  conflict  with  the  church,  and  did  not  betimes 
make  preparations  for  it.     He  gladly  embraced  the  opportunity 


PRINCE  HOHENLOBE'S  SPEECH.  91 

of  stating  that  be  did  not  share  this  view.  In  April,  18G7,  he 
himself  (Prince  Hoheulohe,  then  being  prime  minister  of  Bava- 
ria) issued  bis  circular  to  the  foreign  powers,  giving  a  warning 
which  was  not  listened  to  ;  and  some  months  afterwards  be  bad 
an  opportunity  of  frequently  and  fully  discussing  the  matter 
with  Count  Bismarck.  He  knew,  therefore,  with  what  earnest 
and  ever-increasing  anxiety  the  chancellor  beheld  the  approach 
of  the  conflict,  the  importance  of  which  he  did  not  underrate. 
At  that  time  —  namely,  in  September,  1869  —  he  himself  bad 
received  the  refusal  of  Austria  and  France  to  take  any  action  ; 
and  in  view  of  this  refusal  of  the  two  chief  Catholic  powers, 
what  could  have  been  done  by  Bismarck,  the  chancellor  of  the 
mainly  Protestant  North  German  Confederation,  and  himself, 
the  minister  president  of  comparatively  small  Bavaria,  to  pre- 
vent that  concentration  of  ecclesiastical  power  which  afterwards 
found  expression  in  the  council  by  the  definition  of  the  dogma 
of  papal  infallibility  ?  " 

This  testimony  vindicates  Bismarck  upon  every  point 
raised,  either  by  the  ultramontanes  or  by  Von  Arnira, 
whom  they  have  taken  into  their  alliance.  It  shows 
that  he  foresaw  the  evil  that  ultramontanism  was  pre- 
paring for  Europe ;  that  he  sought  to  save  the  Catholic 
Church  in  Germany  from  the  clutches  of  the  Jesuits, 
and  to  avert  a  collision  between  the  church  and  the  state  ; 
and  not  till  the  hierarchy  assailed  the  empire  did  he  strike 
the  blow  so  long  deferred. 


III. 

THE  ARMAMENT  OF  GERMANY. 

(Bead  before  the  Association  for  the  Reform  and  Ck>dification  of  the  Law  of 
Nations,  at  its  meeting  at  the  Hague,  September,  1875.) 

The  following  questions  were  put  forth  by  the  Gen- 
eral Secretary,  touching  a  proportionate  reduction  in  the 
armaments  of  European  nations. 

1.  What  is  the  armament,  by  land  and  sea,  of  the 
nation  to  which  you  belong,  and  what,  also,  according  to 
your  information,  are  the  armaments  of  the  other  Euro- 
pean nations  ? 

2.  What  proportion  of  such  armament,  in  the  case  of 
each  nation,  do  you  consider  necessary  to  its  internal 
security  ? 

3.  What  proportion  do  you  consider  necessary  to  its 
external  security  ? 

4.  Do  you  consider  it  desirable  that  there  should  be  a 
proportionate  reduction  in  the  armaments  of  European 
nations,  and  whatever  may  be  your  opinion,  will  you 
give  the  reasons  for  it  ? 

5.  Is  a  proportionate  reduction  practicable  ;  and,  if  so, 
to  what  extent  ? 

6.  By  what  methods  may  such  a  reduction  be  accom- 
plished ? 

As  a  resident  of  Berlin,  I  have  prepared  a  brief  reply 
to  these  questions  with  regard  to  Germany  ;  and  though 
I  cannot  presume  to  speak  with  the  authority  of  an  offi- 


STRENGTH  OF  THE  GERMAN  ARMY.  93 

cial  statement,  nor  to  represent  adequately  the  tone  of 
German  sentiment  and  the  demands  of  German  national- 
ity, in  military  affairs,  I  shall  hope  to  speak  in  candid 
sympathy  with  the  national  life  of  Germany,  while  giv- 
ing the  judgment  of  an  impartial  observer  upon  the  prac- 
ticability of  reducing  her  armament. 

The  total  fighting  force  of  the  German  empire  may  be 
estimated  roundly  at  1,700,000  men ;  this  includes  the 
navy  and  the  two  classes  of  reserves  of  the  army,  the 
Landwehr  and  the  Landsturm.  The  standing  army  in 
time  of  peace,  consists  of  438,831  men,  and  96,875  horses, 
at  a  yearly  cost  of  359,434,000  reichsmarks  ;  being  about 
an  average  of  900  reichsmarks,  or  300  thalers  per  man. 
This  army  is  organized  with  469  battalions  of  infantry, 
465  squadrons  of  cavalry,  300  campaign  batteries,  29 
battalions  of  fort  artillery,  18  battalions  of  pioneers,  and 
18  battalions  of  service  corps.  No  attempt  is  made  to 
classify  the  men  by  race  or  religion ;  and  it  is  the  uni- 
form opinion  of  officers,  that  in  spite  of  the  present  fer- 
vor of  ecclesiastical  differences  in  some  sections,  Catholics 
and  Protestants  would  fight  side  by  side,  with  equal  zeal, 
against  a  foreign  foe, —  so  overpowering  is  the  sentiment 
of  loyalty  to  the  fatherland  and  the  strength  of  army 
discipline  and  esprit  de  corps. 

This  standing  army  of  the  German  empire  is  an  in- 
crease upon  the  sum  total  of  the  standing  armies  of  the 
several  states  that  now  compose  the  empire,  as  these 
stood  before  the  war  with  France  in  1870  ;  and  the  num- 
ber of  the  army  and  the  yearly  appropriation  for  its  sup- 
port were  fixed,  at  the  last  session  of  parliament,  for  the 
term  of  seven  years  —  just  overlapping  the  septennate  of 
Marshal  Macmahon.  The  increase  of  the  standing  force 
of  the  country  was  urged  by  the  necessity  Germany  is 
under  of  maintaining  her  newly-acquired  boundaries,  her 
national  unity,  and  her  independent  position  in  Europe ; 


94  THE  ARMAMENT  OF  GERMANY. 

and  also  by  a  vague  apprehension  of  impending  danger. 
The  appropriation  for  the  term  of  seven  years  was  voted 
—  against  what  some  would  make  the  strict  construction 
of  the  constitution  —  under  the  pressure  of  public  opin- 
ion, which  demanded  some  permanent  guarantee  of 
peace.  By  the  constitution  the  duration  of  any  one  par- 
liament is  limited  to  three  years,  and  each  parliament 
has  absolute  control  over  the  supplies  and  subsidies  of 
the  empire  during  the  term  of  its  own  existence.  The 
government  had  sought  to  withdraw  the  army  appropria- 
tion from  the  chances  of  the  yearly  budget ;  not  leaving 
it  open  to  be  canvassed  at  every  session  of  parliament, 
but  having  it  definitively  fixed  as  to  amount,  for  an  in- 
definite term  of  years.  This  would  have  been  equivalent 
to  a  vote  of  unlimited  confidence.  Now,  there  was  no 
unwillingness  of  the  majority  to  repose  this  confidence  in 
the  government;  but  many  scrupled  at  assuming  to  bind 
future  parliaments  by  forestalling  their  prerogative  ;  and 
others,  like  the  English  Commons  of  old,  were  jealous  for 
the  hard-won  right  of  controlling  the  purse-strings.  But 
the  great  financial  and  industrial  interests  of  the  country 
insisted  that  its  military  defenses  should  not  be  exposed 
to  the  whims  and  fluctuations  of  parliamentary  majori- 
ties ;  and  on  demand  of  the  press  and  the  people,  the 
army  estimates  were  voted  finally  for  seven  years,  as  a 
compromise  between  government  and  parliament.  Com- 
merce and  Industry  said.  Give  us  security,  and  we  will 
pay  the  cost. 

At  the  same  time  new  regulations  were  made  for  the 
reserves,  so  that  directly  upon  being  called  out,  these 
will  be  incorporated  with  the  regular  army,  and  even  the 
landsturm,  ordinarily  reserved  for  a  last  defense  against 
actual  invasion,  may  now  be  moved  from  place  to  place, 
and  not  kept  simply  each  detachment  for  the  protection 
of  its  own  district.     Hence,  in  case  the  new  rule  of  war 


IS  THIS  ARMAMENT  NEEDED f  95 

concerning  combatants  and  non-combatants,  proposed  at 
Brussels  and  to  be  revived  at  St.  Petersburg,  should  be 
adopted  by  tlie  Great  Powers,  Germany,  when  threatened 
with  invasion,  could  enroll  in  the  regular  army  her  entire 
population  capable  of  bearing  arms,  and  among  men  un- 
der fifty-five  would  have  neither  non-combatants  nor 
irregulars.  These  reserves  are  made  up  of  men  who 
have  had  the  discipline  of  the  army  in  their  youth,  and 
are  of  course  far  superior  in  training  to  a  volunteer  mi- 
litia. 

The  standing  army  of  Germany  is  constantly  kept  up 
to  the  highest  point  of  drill,  and  by  field  manoeuvres  is 
made  familiar  with  the  operations  of  war.  It  is  in  readi- 
ness to  be  put  in  motion  on  the  shortest  notice  ;  and  the 
exigencies  of  the  military  service  are  studied  in  the  con- 
struction of  railways  and  other  public  works.  From  all 
this  it  is  evident  that  Germany  is  doing  nothing,  and  in- 
tending nothing,  toward  a  proportionate  reduction  of  her 
army  in  the  interest  of  peace. 

Yet  it  would  be  wrong  to  infer  that  the  Germans  are 
a  belligerent  nation  and  preparing  for  a  career  of  impe- 
rial conquest.  The  people  are  decidedly  averse  to  wars 
of  ambition  or  of  invasion,  and  the  government  is  not 
likely  to  seek  occasion  for  a  foreign  war  ;  though  if  dan- 
ger threatens  from  without,  both  people  and  government 
will  do  energetically  whatever  the  interests  and  the  safety 
of  Germany  may  seem  to  require. 

So  far  the  first  question :  the  armament  of  Germany 
is  upwards  of  400,000  men  equipped  for  war,  with  every 
facility  for  arming,  at  short  notice,  at  least  four  times 
that  number,  trained  to  the  use  of  arms. 

The  second  question  is.  What  proportion  of  such  ar- 
mament is  necessary  to  the  internal  security  of  the  na- 
tion ?  Of  course  a  foreigner  can  only  guess  at  a  reply ; 
but  I  would  say  at  a  venture,  that,  in  the  absence  of  any 


96        THE  ARMAMENT  OF  GERMANY. 

foreign  intervention  to  provoke  dissension  among  her 
people,  one  tenth  of  her  present  army  —  say  40,000  men 
—  should  suffice  for  the  internal  security  of  the  Ger- 
man empire.  I  know  this  estimate  will  be  received  with 
incredulity  by  the  average  German  citizen,  and  with 
amusement  by  German  statesmen  and  military  men  ;  but 
it  is  really  a  complimentary  recognition  of  their  growth 
in  self-government,  for  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  who 
has  lived  among  them  for  years,  to  say  that  forty  million 
Germans  could  now  be  trusted  to  govern  themselves 
with  as  little  military  force  as  forty  million  Americans 
require  for  their  internal  security.  The  Gernians  are 
not  belligerent  among  themselves  ;  they  are  not  addicted 
to  insurrection  ;  they  are  exceedingly  well  trained  in  the 
habit  of  obedience  to  the  laws  ;  they  have  now  an  outlet 
for  political  fermentation  in  free  constitutional  parlia- 
ments, imperial  and  local ;  and  the  traditions  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War,  and  the  lingering  effects  of  that  war 
in  retarding  the  political  and  industrial  development  of 
the  nation,  have  induced  a  chronic  aversion  to  civil  war 
as  a  remedy  for  any  evils,  real  or  imaginary.  Even  the 
excitements  of  church  politics  in  the  past  three  years 
have  not  roused  a  spirit  of  martial  combat.  The  people 
do  not  need  to  be  governed  by  awe  of  a  military  force, 
and  a  very  small  army  should  suffice  for  any  extraordi- 
nary emergency  of  the  public  peace.  Indeed,  the  inter- 
nal dangers  and  disturbances  of  Germany  would  lose 
much  of  their  importance,  save  for  the  apprehension  of 
foreign  dangers  that  might  give  to  any  domestic  disquiet 
a  purely  factitious  consequence. 

To  the  third  question,  What  proportion  of  the  arma- 
ment of  Germany  is  necessary  to'her  external  secui-ity  ? 
I  answer,  the  whole  of  it,  every  man,  every  horse,  every 
ship,  every  gun,  as  matters  now  are  with  respect  to  ar- 
mament upon  the  continent  of  Europe.     If  Europe  is  to 


NEED  OF  RETRENCHMENT.  97 

live  in  the  constant  expectation  of  war,  and  in  a  state 
of  enormous  and  incessant  preparation  for  war,  then  Ger- 
many nmst  be,  and  will  be,  armed  as  she  is.  The  states- 
manship of  every  continental  people  is  now  largely  de- 
voted to  the  means  of  national  defense ;  to  the  strength- 
ening of  fortifications  and  the  efficient  organization  of 
the  army  ;  the  diplomacy  of  every  nation  is  on  the  alert 
for  the  probabilities  of  war ;  the  interior  economy  of 
every  nation  is  taxed  more  and  more  for  the  military 
branch  of  the  public  service ;  the  inventive  genius  of 
every  people  is  occupied  with  the  improvement  of  weap- 
ons of  destruction.  Lying  in  the  centre  of  Europe,  with 
powerful  neighbors  upon  all  sides,  who  are  emulating 
her  own  military  system,  Germany  must  keep  up  that 
system  to  the  highest  point  of  efficiency  and  of  readiness, 
for  her  own  external  security.  Alone  she  cannot,  dare 
not,  set  the  example  of  reducing  her  armament  or  slight- 
ing her  preparations  for  war. 

Till  revenge,  jealousy,  ambition  shall  be  disarmed 
throughout  Europe,  Germany  must  have  her  body-guard 
of  400,000  men,  her  life-guard  of  1,700,000.  Whenever 
you  urge  upon  her  statesmen  the  policy  of  reducing  her 
armament,  the  answer  is,  "  Give  us  another  geographical 
position."  No  other  country  is  so  exposed  to  be  simul- 
taneously attacked  by  formidable  powers  upon  all  sides. 
No  other  country  so  needs  a  wall  of  fire  to  be  to  her 
what  the  channel  is  to  England,  the  ocean  to  the  United 
States. 

Nevertheless,  in  answer  to  the  fourth  question,  it  is 
most  desirable  that  there  should  be  an  early  reduction  in 
the  armament  of  Germany,  upon  a  scale  of  proportion 
with  other  nations,  that  should  keep  all  relatively  in 
the  same  position  as  at  present  for  maintaining  their  ex- 
ternal security.  For  this  opinion  there  are  two  weighty 
reasons.     (1.)  The  enormous  drain  of  a  universal  mili- 

7 


98  THE  ARMAMENT  OF  GERMANY. 

tary  conscription  upon  the  industrial  life  and  resources 
of  the  nation  ;  and  (2.)  The  fact  that  a  large  standing 
army  is  a  temptation  to  war,  and  is  liable  to  seek  occa- 
sion for  war,  to  justify  its  own  existence. 

In  one  view,  no  doubt,  the  maintenance  of  a  large, 
well-equipped  army,  by  any  country,  favors  peaceable  re- 
lations with  other  nations.  However  restless  and  bellig- 
erent a  nation  may  be,  it  will  hesitate  to  attack  another 
that  is  known  to  be  always  ready  for  vigorous  and  de- 
cisive warfare.  A  nation  well  armed  may  count  upon  a 
certain  immunity  from  insult  or  attack  from  abroad. 
But  there  are  limits  to  the  restraint  that  one  nation  can 
impose  upon  others  by  exhibiting  the  strength  of  its  ar- 
mament. That  very  armament  may  be  taken  for  a  men- 
ace or  a  taunt  ;  it  may  excite  jealousy  or  fear,  and 
provoke  combinations  for  its  overthrow  :  or  the  spirit  of 
bravado,  which  in  human  nature  answers  to  the  crowing 
propensity  in  the  cock,  may  excite  two  military  nations 
to  peck  at  each  other  for  a  fight  that  shall  determine 
which  is  master  of  the  walk.  The  history  of  war  shows 
that  a  great  standing  army  incites  as  much  warfare  as  it 
forefends.  The  nations  that  are  now  vieing  with  each 
other  in  their  military  systems,  and  in  the  inventions 
and  munitions  of  war,  will  hardly  rest  satisfied  till  ac- 
tual collision  in  the  field  shall  have  settled  the  question 
of  superiority.  Hence  the  external  security  of  each  na- 
tion would  be  better  assured  by  a  proportionate  reduction 
of  the  armaments  of  all. 

That  the  internal  peace  and  prosperity  of  each  nation 
demand  such  a  reduction  of  its  own  armament,  is  too 
obvious  for  argument.  The  drain  of  a  large  army  upon 
the  resources  of  a  country  is  constant  and  depleting.  In 
Austria  the  army  consumes  19.83  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
income  of  the  state  ;  in  Germany  26.14  per  cent.  ;  in 
Russia  36.33  ;  in  Italy  17.92  ;  in  France,  with  the  navy, 


EFFECTS  OF  MILITARY  SERVICE.  99 

30.91  ;  in  Great  Britain  30.95 ;  in  Denmark  28.24  ;  in 
Sweden  32.15  ;  in  Norway  29.17  ;  in  the  Netherlands 
27.23 :  making  for  these  ten  states  an  average  of  28.01 
per  cent,  of  income  consumed  in  arming  against  each 
other.  But  this  is  not  all.  It  is  one  of  the  common- 
places of  political  economy,  that  the  soldier,  while  con- 
suming yearly  the  fruits  of  the  labor  of  others,  and  at 
their  cost,  adds  nothing  to  the  productive  resources  of 
the  country,  unless  by  the  fortune  of  war  he  may  annex 
something  to  her  territory.  And  furthermore,  the  term 
of  compulsory  military  service,  as  in  Germany,  comes  to 
young  men  at  a  time  when  it  seriously  interferes  with 
their  training  for  other  occupations  in  life.  Many  a 
young  man  will  testify,  "  I  might  have  been  other  than 
I  am,  or  been  in  business  for  myself,  but  just  as  I  was 
getting  forward,  I  had  to  go  into  the  army,  and  in  my 
three  years  of  service  I  lost  not  only  my  place,  but  what 
qualification  for  business  I  had  previously  acquired,  lost 
my  opportunity  of  advancement,  and  now  must  begin 
again  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder."  Thus  the  array 
service  becomes  to  many  a  serious  obstacle  to  business, 
to  marriage,  to  all  that  men  cherish  for  themselves  in 
life,  and  to  that  free  development  of  the  individual  which 
tends  to  the  highest  mean  of  national  good.  This  is  felt 
seriously  by  many  in  Germany,  who  nevertheless  submit 
to  the  present  military  system  as  a  political  necessity, 
and  would  defend  it  from  motives  of  patriotism. 

But  it  should  be  said  with  equal  frankness,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  for  many,  also,  the  course  of  obligatory 
railitai'y  service  is  a  salutary  discipline,  and  has  an  ele- 
vating influence.  This  is  true,  for  example,  of  the  more 
ignorant  of  the  peasantry  and  of  the  mining  population, 
■who  gain  in  the  army  notions  of  order,  of  cleanliness, 
and  of  regularity,  to  which  they  were  strangers  ;  and 
who,  by  coming  in  contact  with  men  of  a  higher  grade. 


100  TUB  ARMAMENT  OF  GERMANY. 

and  by  moving  from  place  to  place,  undergo  a  civilizing 
process  that  is  much  to  their  advantage  in  after  life.  As 
to  oflBcers,  it  will  be  admitted  that  there  is  no  higher 
school  of  men  and  manners  than  that  provided  in  the 
Prussian  army.  Loyalty  to  king  and  country,  culture  in 
literature  and  science,  chivalry  and  magnanimity  of 
mien,  though  not  without  a  certain  pride  of  caste,  place 
these  officers  among  the  picked  men  of  the  kingdom. 

As  a  rule,  the  people  of  Germany  are  proud  of  their 
army,  recognizing  the  great  services  it  has  done  for  the 
nation,  and  being  also  identified  with  it  by  many  per- 
sonal ties.  By  the  constitution  of  the  empire,  personal 
military  service  is  made  obligatory  upon  every  citizen, 
and  by  act  of  parliament  it  is  unlawful  for  the  press  to 
call  in  question  this  fundamental  organic  provision,  or  to 
cast  reproach  upon  the  nation's  defense.  The  people  ac- 
quiesce in  a  seeming  necessity,  but  they  groan  under  the 
taxes,  and  the  personal  and  domestic  privations,  to  which 
this  system  subjects  them ;  and  should  a  long  peace  make 
the  necessity  of  the  military  system  less  obvious  and  im- 
perative, the  murmurs  of  tax-payers  would  soon  become 
audible,  and  might  even  grow  formidable. 

And  in  this  lies  the  risk  of  a  large  army  being  urged 
on  to  war  by  a  popular  clamor  against  its  costly  inertia. 
That  a  distinctive  war  party  exists  in  Germany,  I  see  no 
evidence ;  nor  do  I  imagine  that  any  statesman  would 
venture  to  advocate  a  policy  of  war,  as  the  key  to  his 
administration.  Among  younger  officers,  zealous  for 
chivalrous  exploits  and  impatient  for  promotion,  there  is 
often  talk  of  war  as  approaching  or  desirable ;  but  as  a 
rule,  old  and  experienced  officers  are  slow  to  plunge  their 
country  into  war  —  possibly  a  school  of  politicians  may 
fancy  that  to  take  the  initiative  in  a  foreign  war,  when 
the  aspect  is  threatening,  is  the  surest  road  to  victory, 
safety,  and  peace.     But  there  is  no  party  in  Germany 


ARBITRATION.  101 

that  openly  avows  this  policy,  nor  could  such  a  party  or 
policy  find  favor  with  the  people,  except  in  some  mani- 
fest emergency. 

But  a  protracted  peace  must  tend  to  undermine  the 
conviction  that  a  great  standing  army  is  a  necessity  of 
the  state  ;  and  history  warns  us  that  burdensome  taxa- 
tion for  the  support  of  an  army  may  provoke  popular 
revolt,  and  then  such  revolt  be  pleaded  as  a  pretext  for 
a  great  standing  army  as  an  internal  police.  There  are 
no  present  signs  of  such  a  peril  to  Germany  ;  but  the 
peril  lies  in  the  very  provision  made  to  guard  against  it. 
Upon  all  these  grounds,  therefore,  a  reduction  of  the  ar- 
mament should  recommend  itself  to  statesmen. 

This  leads  to  the  concluding  questions,  Nos.  5  and  6, 
which,  for  brevity,  may  be  treated  as  one :  "  Is  a  pro- 
portionate reduction  practicable ;  and,  if  so,  to  what  ex- 
tent? And  by  what  methods  may  such  a  reduction  be 
accomplished  ?  "  A  reduction  is  practicable  only  upon 
the  condition  that  some  other  expedient  than  war  be 
clearly  set  before  the  people,  that  shall  give  an  equal  as- 
surance that  the  interests  and  honor  of  the  nation  shall 
be  faithfully  preserved.  The  only  expedient  capable  of 
this  is  arbitration.  But  to  induce  a  military  nation  to 
have  recourse  to  arbitration  as  a  substitute  for  war,  con- 
fidence must  first  be  inspired  in  arbitration  as  practicable 
and  equitable ;  and  such  confidence  will  be  of  compara- 
tively slow  growth,  as  the  result  of  experience.  Arbi- 
tration is  not  likely  to  be  accepted  at  wholesale,  as  an 
abstract  principle,  but  can  be  recommended  in  detail,  by 
clear  and  tangible  cases. 

Now  there  are  two  classes  of  cases  which  can  be  hope- 
fully recommended  to  all  nations  as  matter  for  arbitra- 
tion. 

(1.)  Disputes  concerning  territory  or  property.  The 
first  of  these  are  in  a  certain  sense  international,  since 
questions  of  boundary  affect  the  whole  community   of 


102  THE  ARMAMENT  OF  GERMANY. 

nations.  Hence,  with  special  propriety,  such  cases  could 
come  before  an  international  tribunal. 

Experience  has  shown  that  the  forcible  settlement  of 
boundary  leaves  cause  of  rankling,  dispute,  and  retalia- 
tion in  the  future,  and  thus  becomes  a  costly  and  uncer- 
tain mode  of  settlement:  while  the  example  of  great 
nations  testifies  that,  in  such  cases,  arbitration  would  be 
accepted  with  dignity  and  satisfaction. 

As  to  property,  we  have  reached  an  age  of  civilization 
when  a  war  risking  thousands  of  lives  and  the  morals  of 
a  nation,  simply  for  money,  could  hai'dly  justify  itself  to 
the  moral  sense  of  Christendom  ;  and  now  that  the  whole 
resources  of  commerce  and  banking  are  available  for  the 
peaceful  adjustment  of  such  disputes,  arbitration  is  their 
obvious  remedy. 

(2.)  Questions  affecting  persons.  By  the  comity  of 
nations,  or  by  special  treaties,  many  questions  concern- 
ing persons  are  already  provided  for  by  peaceable  meth- 
ods. As  a  rule,  questions  concerning  ambassadors,  emi- 
grants, refugees,  criminals,  neutrals,  are  disposed  of  by 
some  specific  agreement  or  by  public  international  law. 
A  principle  so  widely  accepted  might  well  be  extended 
to  cover  all  manner  of  cases  concerning  persons. 

There  would  then  remain  only  a  class  of  questions  ly- 
ing within  the  vague  region  of  national  honor.  But  the 
more  practical  and  substantial  questions  being  already 
provided  for  on  terms  of  peace,  and  the  habit  being  es- 
tablished of  adjusting  these  peaceably,  the  class  of  prob- 
lematical questions  would  diminish  in  number,  and  by 
degrees  would  come  to  be  referred  to  the  same  category 
of  arbitration.  Step  by  step  this  grand  consummation 
may  be  gained. 

A  growing  help  in  this  direction  is  the  influence  of  in- 
ternational congresses  for  the  advanceuicnt  of  knowledge 
and  the  improvement  of  society.  1  know  it  has  been 
wittily  said  that  every  great  international  exhibition  has 


INTERNATIONAL  EXHIBITIONS.  103 

been  followed  by  a  great  war.  Yet  it  were  vain  to  deny 
that  the  intercourse  promoted  by  such  occasions  favors  a 
peaceable  disposition  among  the  nations.  In  the  recent 
Geographical  Congress  of  Paris,  a  German  geologist, 
whose  name  is  honored  throughout  the  scientific  world, 
presided  over  one  of  the  sessions,  with  the  same  apparent 
welcome  that  was  accorded  to  every  representative  of 
foreign  nations ;  German  travelers  recounted  to  admiring 
audiences  their  explorations  in  Africa ;  German  authori- 
ties were  quoted  with  commendation  ;  and  prizes  were 
awarded  to  German  societies  and  savans,  with  the  hearty 
courtesy  and  impartiality  that  marked  the  whole  pro- 
ceedings ;  and  when,  in  that  vast  concourse,  one  heard 
the  Russian,  the  German,  the  Hollander,  the  Swede,  the 
Belgian,  the  Englishman,  the  Frenchman,  the  Italian, 
the  Hungarian,  each  in  his  own  tongue  pay  tribute  to 
the  commonwealth  of  science ;  when  one  heard  the  vice- 
admiral  of  France,  president  of  the  congress,  instance 
its  assembling  as  one  of  the  conquests  and  tokens  of 
peace,  and  saw  the  marshal-president  of  France  and  the 
heir  to  the  throne  of  Russia  assisting  at  the  congress 
with  the  personal  interest  and  attention  of  its  more  ac- 
tive members,  one  could  not  but  feel  a  loftier  inspiration 
for  humanity,  —  the  pulse  of  that  inner  life,  which  not 
all  the  savage  surgery  of  war  has  been  able  to  exhaust 
nor  permanently  to  enfeeble. 

The  Geographical  Congress  taught  that  the  physical 
globe  belongs  to  man,  for  community  of  exploration,  of 
discovery,  of  development,  of  utilization,  for  the  behoof 
of  human  society.  In  this  it  was  our  fit  auxiliary.  But 
this  association  teaches  the  higher  lesson  that  human  so- 
ciety itself  belongs  to  man;  —  a  community  of  nations, 
girded  with  the  armament  of  justice,  ordered  and  per- 
fected by  equal  and  universal  law  —  arbitrating  the 
claims  of  every  member  and  conserving  the  welfare  of 
the  whole. 


IV. 

THE    INTERCOURSE     OF    CHRISTIAN     WITH     NON- 
CHRISTIAN    PEOPLES. 

(Presented  at  the  Conference  of  the  "  Association  for  the  Reform  and  Codifica- 
tion of  the  Law  of  Nations,"  at  Bremen,  September,  187C.) 

If  by  the  '•''Reform  of  the  Law  of  Nations,"  in  the 
title  of  the  association,  is  meant  not  only  the  rectification 
of  errors  and  abuses,  but  an  intelligential  advance  in 
principles  and  methods  in  the  ever-widening  field  of  na- 
tional intercourse,  then,  in  no  department  of  our  work 
could  there  arise  a  question  at  once  so  urgent  and  so 
comprehensive  as  that  of  the  principles  which  shoidd  gov- 
ern the  intercourse  of  Christian  with  non-Christian  peo- 
ples. This  is  indeed  a  question  of  reforming  the  law  of 
nations,  in  the  literal  sense  of  forming  it  anew.  It 
covers  all  the  methods  and  aims  contemplated  by  this 
association,  —  philosophic,  philanthropic,  and  practical. 
Since  I  proposed  this  topic  to  the  favor  of  the  council, 
three  months  ago,  three  events  of  no  common  significance 
have  occurred  to  give  it  point  and  urgency. 

(1.)  At  the  very  moment  when  the  people  of  the 
United  States  were  celebrating  the  centennial  of  an  inde- 
pendence based  upon  the  natural  rights  of  men,  and  were 
exhibiting  the  progress  of  the  world  in  the  arts  of  peace, 
a  frightful  outbreak  of  Indian  cruelty  and  revenge  raised 
anew  the  question  of  the  treatment  of  aborigines  by  a 
Christian  nation,  in  respect  of  territory,  possessions,  and 
protection. 


TURKISH  MASSACRES.  105 

(2.)  The  brutality  reported  of  the  Turks  in  Bulgaria 
raised  throughout  Europe  a  cry  for  the  intervention  of 
the  Christian  Powers,  upon  grounds  of  liumanity  and  re- 
ligion,—  thus  bringing  the  fervor  of  humane  impulse  and 
of  religious  enthusiasm  into  one  of  the  most  confused 
problems  of  international  law. 

As  a  side-light  upon  this  problem  it  is  worth  recalling, 
that  just  seventy  years  ago  Napoleon  wrote  to  his  brother 
Joseph  concerning  the  insurrection  in  his  Neapolitan 
kingdom,  "  I  am  glad  to  see  that  a  village  of  the  insur- 
gents has  been  burnt.^  .  .  .  You  should  order  two  or 
three  of  the  large  villages  that  have  behaved  the  worst 
to  be  pillaged  ;  it  will  be  an  example,  and  will  restore  to 
your  troops  their  gayety  and  desire  for  action."  ^  Burn- 
ing, pillaging,  shooting,  hanging.  Napoleon  justified  by 
the  laws  of  war ;  saying  "  there  is  nothing  sacred  after  a 
conquest."  ^  But  we  must  remember  that  it  was  one  of 
his  mottoes,  that  "  What  a  nation  most  hates  is  another 
nation."*  It  is  a  long  advance  from  the  sangfroid  with 
which  Napoleon  ordered  such  severities  in  Naples,  to  the 
shudder  with  which  Europe  reads  of  them  in  Bulgaria ; 
yet  we  cannot  forget  how  recently  an  English  commander 
whom  none  would  charge  with  inhumanity  ordei'ed  the 
burning  of  Ashantee  villages  as  a  punishment  and  a 
warning.  The  same  retribution  has  been  inflicted  just 
now  in  Dahomey.  These  hints  will  suffice  to  show  how 
far  Christendom  yet  is  from  unanimity  as  to  what  consti- 
tutes brutality  in  war,  or  what  measure  of  brutality 
would  justify  protest  and  intervention  in  the  name  of 
humanity. 

(3.)  In  pleasing  contrast  with  these  aggravating  events, 

1  Letter  to  Joseph,  April  21,  1806. 
"  Letter  to  Joseph,  July  30,  1806. 
«  Letter  to  Joseph,  March  31,  1806. 
*  Letter  to  Joseph,  August  9,  1806. 


106    INTERCOURSE  WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

appeared  at  the  same  time  an  invitation  from  the  King 
of  tlie  Belgians,  for  a  congress  of  African  travelers  and 
explorers  to  meet  at  Brnssels  and  take  the  initiative  for 
the  civilization  of  equatorial  Africa  by  a  system  of  scien- 
tific stations  and  commissarial  depositories  to  be  estab- 
lished under  an  international  commission  ;  —  that  is  to 
say,  the  opening  of  the  vast  interior  of  Africa  to  inter- 
course with  the  civilized  world  should  not  be  left  to  the 
enterprise  of  travelers,  the  caprice  of  adventurers,  the 
cupidity  of  monopolies,  nor  the  rivalry  of  separate  na- 
tions, but  should  be  made  the  common  cause  of  Christen- 
dom, under  well-ascertained  principles  of  international 
law,  regulating  the  approaches  of  civilized  peoples  to  the 
rude  tribes  of  the  Nile,  the  Niger,  and  the  Congo. 

At  the  opening  of  this  unique  conference,  on  the  13th 
of  September,  his  majesty  said,  "  Le  sujet  que  nous  r^- 
unit  aujourd'hui  est  de  ceux  qui  mdritent  au  premier 
chef  d'occuper  les  amis  de  I'humanitd.  Ouvrir  ck.  la  civi- 
lisation la  seule  parti  de  notre  globe  ou  elle  n'ait  point 
encore  pdn^tre,  percer  les  tdnebres  qui  enveloppent  des 
populations  entieres,  c'est,  si  j'ose  le  dire,  une  croisade 
digne  de  ce  siecle  de  progres ;  et  je  suis  heureux  de  con- 
stater  combien  le  sentiment  public  est  favorable  ^  son 
accomplissement."  He  invited  the  conference  to  discuss 
and  determine  "  les  voies  a  suivre,  les  moyens  a  employer 
pour  planter  definitivement  I'^tendard  de  la  civilisation 
sur  le  sol  de  I'Afrique  centrale  ;  "  and  he  suggested  the 
following  points  as  worthy  of  special  attention  :  — 

1.  "  Designation. precise  des  bases  d'opdration  a  acqud- 
rir  sur  la  c6te  de  Zanzibar  et  pr^s  de  I'embouchure  du 
Congo,  soit  par  conventions  avec  les  chefs,  soit  par  achats 
ou  locations  a  rdgler  avec  les  partiouliers. 

2.  "  Designation  des  routes  ^  ouvrir  successivement 
vers  I'intdrieur  et  des  stations  hospitalieres,  scientifiques 
et  pacificatrices  a  organiser  comme  moyen  d'abolir  Tescla- 


THE  OPENING  OF  AFRICA.  107 

vage,  et  d'etablir  la  Concorde  entre  lea  chefs,  de  leiir  pro- 
curer des  arbitres  jiistes,  ddsintdressds,  etc. 

3.  "  Creation,  rocuvre  dtant  bien  definie,  d'un  comitc 
international  et  central,  et  des  comitds  nationaux  i)()ur 
en  poursuivre  I'exdcution,  chacun  en  ce  qui  le  coneernera, 
en  exposer  le  but  au  public  de  tons  les  pays  et  faire  au 
sentiment  charitable  un  appel  qu'aucune  bonne  cause  ne 
lui  a  jamais  addressd  en  vain." 

In  proposing  my  theme  to  the  council,  I  had  barely 
anticipated  these  noble  wishes  of  his  majesty  the  King  of 
the  Belgians. 

The  framing  of  regulations  for  a  closer  intercourse 
with  non-Christian  peoples  is  the  fit  work  of  an  associa- 
tion for  the  reform  of  the  law  of  nations  ;  and  it  is  with 
the  hope  and  the  request  that  the  present  conference 
will  appoint  a  commission  to  give  effect  to  this  sugges- 
tion, that  I  venture  to  submit  an  essay  toward  principles 
of  international  law,  to  govern  the  intercourse  of  Chris- 
tian with  non-Christian  peoples. 

This  classification  is  the  best  that  the  subject  admits 
of.  One  could  not  say  "  pagan  "  peoples,  since  not  only 
are  ^Mohammedans  the  fiercest  of  iconoclasts,  but  the 
Chinese  and  Japanese,  who  fall  within  the  category  of 
"  non-Christian  "  peoples,  resent  such  epithets  as  "  pa- 
gan "  or  "  heathen."  Neither  could  one  classify  these 
last  as  "  uncivilized  ;  "  since  China  and  Japan  have  a 
fair  title  among  civilized  nations.  But  inasmuch  as 
modern  international  law  was  born  of  Christian  senti- 
ment in  Grotins,  and  now  obtains  throughout  Christen- 
dom, the  division  is  fair  between  Christian  and  non- 
Christian  peoples.  Moreover,  since  all  authorities  agree 
that  international  law  can  take  effect  only  between  com- 
munities organized  as  nations  or  states,  and  since  roving 
hordes  and  societies  united  sceleris  causa  are  not  recog- 
nized  as   states,    I  have   purposely    avoided   the   terms 


108    INTERCOURSE   WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

"  state  "  and  "  nation,"  and  have  used  "  peoples  "  as  in- 
cluding tribes,  because  my  object  is  to  ascertain  the 
principles  that  should  govern  Christian  nations  —  that 
do  acknowledge  a  law  among  themselves  —  in  their  inter- 
course with  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men,  whether 
within  the  family  of  nations  or  still  without  its  pale. 

In  this  view  the  theme  is  broader  and  deeper  —  at 
once  more  comprehensive  and  more  radical  —  than  that 
which  the  Institute  of  International  Law  last  year  sub- 
mitted to  a  commission,  viz. :  "  The  Applicability  of  the 
European  Law  of  Nations  to  the  Nations  of  the  East ;  " 
—  a  topic  which  is  ably  discussed  by  Sir  Travers  Twiss, 
in  the  "Law  Magazine  and  Review"  for  May,  1876, 
with  special  relation  to  African  slave  states.  That  in- 
quiry has  reference  to  the  ripeness  of  the  nations  of  the 
East  for  admission  into  the  general  community  of  Inter- 
national Law.  Turkey  was  formally  received  into  that 
community  by  the  treaty  of  Paris  of  1856,  the  seventh 
article  of  which  declares  that  "  the  Sublime  Porte  is  ad- 
mitted to  participate  in  the  advantages  of  the  public  law 
and  concert  of  Europe ;  "  and  this  association  numbers 
among  its  vice-presidents  distinguished  representatives  of 
Turkey,  Egypt,  and  Japan. 

But  my  inquiry  has  reference  to  the  ripeness  of  Chris- 
tian nations  for  some  concert  of  principles  that  shall  gov- 
ern their  intercourse  with  all  non-Christian  peoples  ;  not 
how  far  such  peoples  are  qualified  to  accept  the  law  of 
nations  as  it  is,  but  whether  Ciiristian  nations  can  agree 
upon  certain  just  and  equal  rules  of  dealing  witli  non- 
Christian  peoples  under  all  circumstances  and  conditions 
of  intercourse  with  them.  In  other  words,  in  what  form 
shall  Christian  peoples  put  the  law  of  nations  before 
non-Christian  peoples  whom  they  would  educate  up  to  its 
level,  and  finally  win  to  its  authority  ?  This  question 
I  shall  not  presume  to  answer  to  the  extent  of  formu- 


PIUXCIPLES  OF  ACTIO y.  109 

lating  principles  as  rules  of  action,  but  shall  content  my- 
self with  an  essay  toward  such  principles. 

The  subject  divides  itself  into  five  categories. 

1.  Territory/.  Upon  what  principles  should  Cliristian 
nations  deal  with  non-Christian  peoples  in  the  acquisition 
of  territory  found  in  their  occupation  ? 

2.  Commerce.  What  principles  should  regulate  the 
commercial  intercourse  of  Christian  with  non-Christian 
peoples  ? 

3.  Humanity.  How  far  may  Christian  nations  inter- 
fere in  the  affairs  of  non-Christian  peoples  to  regulate  or 
restrain  their  doings  in  the  interest  of  humanity  ? 

4.  Public  peace  and  order.  To  what  extent  may 
Christian  nations  undertake  the  police  of  the  world,  with 
a  view  to  public  safety  and  order  ? 

5.  Religion.  To  what  extent  and  upon  what  grounds 
may  Christian  nations  interfere  with  non-Christian  peo- 
ples in  matters  of  religion  ? 

Under  each  of  these  heads  I  will  briefly  state  the  law 
of  nations  as  it  is,  and  point  out  particulars  in  which 
improvement  or  advancement  seems  to  be  called  for  ; 
ending  with  a  summary  of  the  principles  upon  which 
such  reform  should  be  based. 

I.  Of  Territory.  In  countries  so  organized  and  ad- 
vanced as  Turkey,  China,  and  Japan,  the  acquisition  by 
foreigners  of  a  right  of  domicile  and  of  title  to  land  is 
obviously  within  the  scope  of  treaty  negotiation,  though 
it  may  happen,  as  with  the  opening  of  the  five  ports 
in  China  in  1842,  that  the  privilege  of  residence,  prop- 
erty, and  commerce  is  first  extorted  by  force  of  arms. 
But  in  countries  held  by  aboriginal  tribes,  or  by  sparse 
and  feeble  communities,  the  policy  of  territorial  acquisi- 
tion has  varied  with  the  notions,  the  temperament,  the 
opportunities  of  discoverers  or  colonists  from  abroad. 
There  is  indeed  a  semblance  of  international  law  to  reg- 


110    INTERCOURSE   WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

ulate  such  acquisition.  The  Pope  would  not  now  pre- 
sume to  parcel  out  heathen  nations  as  the  spoil  of  their 
Christian  conquerors  ;  Queen  Victoria  would  not  renew 
the  commission  of  Queen  EHzabeth  to  Sir  Humphrey 
Gilbert,  "  to  discover  such  remote  heathen  and  barbarous 
lands,  countries,  and  territories,  not  actually  possessed 
by  any  Christian  prince  or  people,  and  to  hold,  occupy, 
and  enjoy  the  same,  with  all  their  commodities,  jurisdic- 
tions, and  royalties  ;  "  nor  would  the  Puritan  or  the  Fifth 
Monarchy  Man  now  plead  the  Hebrew  conquest  of  Ca- 
naan as  a  divine  warrant  for  exterminating  the  heathen 
or  reducing  them  to  slavery.  Still,  in  acquiring  the 
territory  of  aborigines,  civilized  men  have  too  often  put 
policy  and  power  before  justice,  and  have  overlooked  the 
idea  of  any  right  or  title  of  the  aborigines  to  the  soil  they 
occupie.d.  And  even  where  there  is  a  disposition  to  do 
justly  by  the  aborigines,  two  principles,  each  having  the 
authority  of  great  names  in  public  law,  come  into  con- 
flict, and  require  to  be  reconciled  by  more  clear  and  pos- 
itive rules. 

The  first  principle  is  that  occupation  or  actual  posses- 
sion creates  a  presumptive  right  of  property  in  the  soil. 
If  there  be  a  precedence  among  rights,  then  it  would 
seem  that  long-time  occupation  should  give  the  first  claim 
to  territory  :  — that,  however  valid  the  right  of  discovery 
may  be  against  subsequent  explorers,  or  other  nations 
within  the  concert  of  public  law,  this  can  have  no  force 
vgainst  the  right  of  occupation  in  aborigines  actually  in 
possession,  —  the  presumption  being  that  a  country  al- 
ready inhabited  when  brought  to  our  knowledge  belongs 
to  the  people  who  inhabit  it.  And  in  the  case  of  aborig- 
ines without  a  history,  this  presumptive  title  runs  back 
of  the  memory  of  man.  Calvo  says,  "  Up  to  a  certain 
point,  usucaption  and  prescription  are  even  more  neces- 


WHAT  IS  OCCUPATION?  Ill 

sary  between  sovereign  states  than  between  individuals."^ 
And  is  there  not  also  a  certain  right  of  usucaption  and 
prescription  in  the  savage  man,  in  the  aboriginal  tribe, 
which  "  sovereign  states  "  are  bound  to  respect  ?  The 
starting  point  in  all  dealings  with  aborigines  concerning 
territory  must  be  the  recognition  in  them  of  some  sort 
of  right  to  the  territory  upon  which  they  are  found.  And 
this  right  must  be  to  the  civilized  man  a  mean  of  jus- 
tice. 

But  this  obvious  principle  is  qualified  by  another, 
which  is  sometimes  pushed  so  far  as  quite  to  overlay  the 
primordial  right  of  occupation.  What  is  occupation  ? 
No  one  would  dispute  that  "a  state  in  the  lawful  posses- 
sion of  a  territoi-y  has  an  exclusive  right  of  property 
therein  "  ^  [^dominium  eminens']  ;  but  can  nomadic  tribes 
have  an  exclusive  right  of  ownership  and  domain  over 
the  vast  territories  they  roam  for  pasturage  and  the 
chase  ?  Every  right  supposes  a  corresponding  duty  ; 
and  since  the  earth  as  a  whole  belongs  to  mankind  as  a 
whole,  and  its  products  and  resources  are  needed  for  the 
sustentation  and  development  of  the  human  race,  the 
right  of  occupation  in  any  portion  of  territory  carries 
with  it  the  obligation  to  serviceable  occupation.  Hence 
Calvo,  in  arguing  the  "legitimate  and  incontestable  title" 
of  the  United  States  to  dominion  over  all  the  lands  once 
occupied  by  Indian  tribes  along  the  frontier  of  the  origi- 
nal colonies,  says,  "The  Indians  were  but  'half-sover- 
eigns' \_7ni-souveraines^^  and  never  in  reality  had  more 
than  a  bare  right  of  occupation."  ^  And  Vattel  is  even 
more  positive :   "  The  peoples  of  the  vast  countries  of 

*  "  L'usucapion  et  la  prescription  sont  meme,  jusqu'k  un  certain 
point,  plus  necessaire  entre  l^tats  souveraius  qu'entre  partifuliers." 
Le  Droit  International,  tome  I.,  v.  173. 

*  Phillimore,  Comm.  on  International  Law,  III.,  iv. 
'  Le  Droit  International,  II.  §  55. 


112    INTERCOURSE  WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

North  America  wandered  over  them  \le%  parcouraient] 
rather  than  inhabited  them  ;  "  and  he  lays  down  this 
principle  :  "  Those  who  still  adhere  to  this  sort  of  idle 
life  usurp  more  land  than  they  would  need  with  honest 
labor,  and  cannot  complain  if  other  nations,  more  labori- 
ous and  too  confined,  come  and  occupy  a  part  of  it."  ^ 
But  even  this  sweeping  principle  reserves  to  wild  tribes 
certain  rights  of  possession  ;  they  are  not  to  be  exter- 
minated nor  enslaved,  but  simply  restricted  to  so  much 
laud  as  "  they  are  in  a  condition  to  inhabit  and  to  culti- 
vate." While  insisting  upon  the  right  of  colonists  "  to 
restrict  savages  to  narrower  limits,"  Vattel  recommends 
conciliation  rather  than  conquest.  "  One  cannot  but 
laud,"  he  says,  "  the  moderation  of  the  English  Puritans, 
who  first  established  themselves  in  New  England.  Al- 
though provided  with  a  charter  from  their  sovereign, 
they  purchased  of  the  savages  the  land  they  wanted  to 
occupy.  This  praiseworthy  example  was  followed  by 
William  Penn,  and  the  colony  of  Quakers  which  he 
conducted  into  Pennsylvania."  ^ 

The  principle  that  the  earth  belongs  to  the  human 
family  for  use  and  improvement  was  strongly  put  by 
Great  Britain  in  her  contest  with  Spain  for  the  freedom 
of  Nootka  Sound  (1790).  Great  Britain  held  that  "  the 
earth  is  the  common  inheritance  of  mankind,  of  which 
each  individual  and  each  nation  has  a  right  to  appropri- 
ate a  share,  by  occupation  and  cultivation."  ^  Dr.  Arnold 
pushed  this  doctrine  to  the  extreme  that  only  labor  can 
create  aright  of  property  in  the  soil.  "So  mucii  does 
the  right  of  property  go  along  with  labor,  that  civilized 
nations  have  never  scrupled  to  take  possession  of  coun- 
tries  inhabited   only   by  tribes   of   savages  —  countries 

^  Vattel,  Droit  des  Gens,  t.  1. 1.  i.  cvii.  §  81. 
2  Droit  des  Gens,  s.  c.  xviii.  §  209. 
•  Wheatoii,  pt.  II.  6.  IV. 


SERVICEABLE  OCCUPATION.  113 

which  have  been  hunted  over — but  never  subdued  or 
cultivated."  ^  This  doctrine  was  much  canvassed  in 
England,  in  the  New  Zealand  question  of  thirty  years 
ago.2  It  contains  an  element  of  substantial  truth,  and, 
in  one  aspect  is  humane — as  proffering  relief  for  over- 
crowded and  starving  populations.  But  it  is  also  a  doc- 
trine especially  liable  to  abuse.  It  should  be  applied 
with  caution  and  conciliation,  and  never  pressed  to  the 
destruction  of  the  right  of  aborigines  to  subsist,  as  best 
they  may,  upon  the  territory  which  they  and  their  fathers, 
from  time  immemorial,  have  occupied.  What  is  service- 
able occupation  ?  What  is  the  standard  of  cultivation, 
and  who  shall  fix  this  and  enforce  it  ?  If  my  neighbor 
suffei's  his  land  to  become  a  nursery  of  weeds  overrun- 
ning my  premises,  or  a  marsh  distilling  pestilence,  I  have 
just  cause  of  complaint ;  but  I  have  no  right  to  insist 
that  he  shall  use  a  subsoil  plough  and  the  best  chemical 
fertilizers,  in  order  to  make  his  land  most  serviceable  to 
the  community,  under  pain  of  confiscation  if  he  let  it  lie 
waste.  Agrarianism  and  Communism  would  seize  upon 
all  private  estates  under  the  plea  of  making  these  more 
serviceable  to  mankind  ;  yet  such  estates  may  be  of  the 
highest  benefit  as  a  means  of  culture  and  taste,  and  the 
basis  of  a  cultivated  class  that  lifts  society  and  the  state 
to  a  higher  level  of  civilization. 

1  Dr.  Arnold  seems  to  have  borrowed  his  doctrine  from  Cicero. 
•'  Sunt  autem  privata  nulla  natura  ;  sed  aut  veteri  occupatione,  ut  qui 
quondam  in  vacua  venerunt  ;  aut  victoria,  ut  qui  hello  potiti  sunt ; 
aut  lege,  pactione,  conditione,  sorte  ;  ex  quo  fit,  ut  ager  Arpinas 
Arpinatum  dictatur,  Tusculanus,  Tusculanorum  ;  siniilisque  est  pri- 
vatarura  possessionum  descriptio  :  ex  quo,  quia  suum  cujusque  fit, 
eorum,  quae  natura  fuerant  communia,  quod  cuique  obtigit,  id  quis- 
que  teneat  ;  eo  si  qui  sibi  plus  appetet,  violabit  jus  humanae  socie- 
tatis."     De  Officiis,  lib.  i.  cap.  7. 

'^  The  New  Zealand  Question  and  the  Rights  of  Aborigines,  by 
L.  A.  Chamerovzow. 


114    INTERCOURSE  WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

We  must  take  heed  not  to  enforce  against  aborigines 
a  doctrine  that  might  subvert  the  foundations  of  thrift 
and  order  in  the  best  civihzed  states.  My  riglit  to  live 
and  to  improve  the  earth  after  my  own  fashion  does  not 
convey  the  right  to  oust  or  exterminate  my  neighbor, 
nor  to  compel  him  to  get  his  living  after  my  fashion, 
however  superior  this  may  be  to  his  own.  It  may  be 
the  law  of  nature  that  savage  tribes  must  become  civil- 
ized or  die  out ;  but  has  a  Christian  nation  the  preroga- 
tive of  enforcing  or  accelerating  this  law,  by  fire  and 
sword  ? 

It  may  aid  in  the  adjustment  of  the  two  principles 
now  stated,  if  we  keep  in  mind  that  rude  and  even  no- 
madic tribes  do  often  have  some  notion  of  territorial  lim- 
its and  of  public  law,  and  also  that  they  are  amenable 
to  other  influences  than  force  and  fear.  The  desert  of 
Arabia  Petrsea,  for  example,  is  parceled  out  among  differ- 
ent tribes  by  lines,  which,  though  marked  by  no  natural 
features,  are  as  sharply  defined  as  the  boundaries  between 
any  civilized  nations.  Arrived  at  Akaba  on  my  journey 
northward  from  Mount  Sinai  to  Petra,  I  must  there 
change  camels  and  escort,  for  I  had  come  within  the 
domain  of  the  renowned  Sheikh  Husein.  I  found  him 
seated  in  the  midst  of  his  men  of  war  armed  with  their 
matchlocks,  knives,  and  spears.  He,  however,  refused 
to  furnish  us  an  escort  to  Petra,  on  the  ground  that  the 
adjacent  tribes  were  at  war.  As  our  party  was  large 
and  well  armed  we  offered  to  take  the  risk,  if  he  would 
give  us  a  guide.  Drawing  himself  up  to  his  full  height, 
he  answered,  "  You  are  now  in  my  territory,  under  my 
protection.  If  I  permit  you  to  go  into  danger  and  one 
of  you  is  robbed  or  killed,  your  consul  at  Cairo  will  send 
word  to  your  country ;  and  by  and  by,  after  one,  two, 
three  years,  the  big  ships  will  come  to  Egypt,  to  Con- 
stantinople, and  the  Sultan  and  the  Khedive  will  send 


COMMERCE.  115 

soldiers  to  seize  me,  and  "  —  here  he  drew  his  hand  rap- 
idly across  his  neck  to  signify  that  he  would  lose  his 
head !  Never  was  I  so  impressed  with  the  omnipresence 
and  majesty  of  that  public  law  that  holds  even  the 
Bedouins  under  its  sway,  and  makes  its  presence  felt  in 
the  silence  of  the  desert.  Mohammed  Ali  had  taught 
that  lesson. 

But  the  roving  tribes  of  the  wilderness,  the  savages  of 
Africa  and  of  the  Pacific,  are  susceptible  to  other  ap- 
proaches than  by  force  and  fear.  We  have  but  to  re- 
member that  they  are  men,  and  we  shall  find  them  open 
to  kindness,  to  vanity,  to  cupidity,  and  also  to  justice. 
The  Indians,  who  were  capable  of  making  a  treaty  with 
the  United  States  for  reserved  land,  might  have  been  in- 
duced to  concede  the  privilege  of  scientific  exploration, 
and  that  any  mines  found  in  their  territory  might  be 
worked,  on  condition  of  paying  a  percentage  to  their 
tribes.  In  that  case,  the  gold-hunting  in  the  Black  Hills, 
instead  of  being  resented  by  them  as  a  usurpation  and  a 
robbery,  would  have  been  welcomed  as  a  source  of  wealth 
without  toil.  These  are  men  of  like  passions  with  our- 
selves ;  and  it  is  worth  trying  whether  their  right  of  oc- 
cupation cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  world's  right  of 
discovery  and  advancement.  There  may  still  be  circum- 
stances in  which  the  two  principles  must  come  to  strife ; 
but  it  is  the  duty  of  Christian  nations,  first  of  all,  to  deal 
with  non-Christian  peoples  as  men  having  human  rights, 
and,  most  of  all,  to  show  that  they  mean  to  be,  and  seek 
to  be,  just.  In  the  manner  advised  by  the  King  of  the 
Belgians  they  should  advance  civilization  through  con- 
cord with  native  chiefs,  and  just  and  disinterested  arbi- 
tration. 

II.  Commerce.  Wheaton  wrote  thirty  years  ago, 
"  The  injustice  and  mischief  of  admitting  that  nations 
have  a   right  to  use  force,   for  the  express  purpose  of 


116    INTERCOURSE   WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

retarding  the  civilization  and  diminishing  the  prosperity 
of  their  inoffensive  neighbors,  are  too  revolting  to  allow 
such  a  right  to  be  inserted  in  the  international  code."  ^ 
Bnt  is  it  not  time  to  ask  whether  nations  have  a  right  to 
use  force  for  the  purpose  of  advancing  the  civilization 
and  enhancing  the  prosperity  of  less  favored  peoples? 
Is  commerce,  as  the  van-guard  of  our  Christian  civiliza- 
tion, to  be  quartered  upon  reluctant  peoples  by  the  rifle 
and  the  gunboat  ?  We  may  well  ask  ourselves  whether 
a  civilization  that  puts  on  the  horrid  front  of  war,  and 
goes  on  its  mission  bristling  with  cannon,  is  after  all  so 
much  better  than  barbarism  in  the  sum  total  of  human 
happiness,  as  to  justify  an  armed  crusade  to  carry  its 
commerce  and  arts  through  the  world  ?  —  Whether  hu- 
manity would  be  much  the  gainer  if  the  whole  world 
should  be  civilized  up  to  the  point  where  each  nation 
should  exhaust  its  resources  and  inventions  upon  improv- 
ing and  multiplying  agents  for  the  destruction  of  human 
life,  and  in  every  land  every  youth  should  be  taken  from 
the  plow,  the  shop,  the  school,  and  trained  to  the  art 
of  war.  Should  it  not  shame  Christian  nations  to  make 
their  first  impression  upon  ruder  peoples  through  supe- 
rior powers  of  destruction,  and  by  a  commerce  that  sends 
fire  and  slaughter  to  prepare  the  way  for  opium  and 
rum  ? 

There  is  a  right  of  commerce.  The  same  principle 
that  warrants  mankind  in  reclaiming  the  earth  for  their 
needs,  entitles  them  to  share  in  the  products  of  different 
climates  and  soils  as  means  of  comfort  and  enjoyment. 
But  this  right,  like  that  of  colonial  settlement,  should 
be  asserted  in  the  spirit  of  peace  and  good-will,  and  for 
the  broad  interests  of  humanity.  The  commerce  of  the 
Christian  world  with  non-Christian  peoples,  looking  be- 
yond present  economical  advantages,  should  stimulate 
1  Wheaton,  Elements  of  Ititernnlloiial  Law,  pt.  II.  c.  1. 


TUE  OPIUM  TRADE.  117 

such  peoples  to  a  higher  development  of  their  natural 
resources,  and  a  higher  improvement  in  the  arts  of  life. 
Hence  any  traffic  that  would  tend  to  corrupt  and  destroy 
inferior  peoples  should  be  discountenanced  by  the  law  of 
nations,  at  least  to  the  extent  that  no  person  engaging 
in  such  traffic  should  have  the  protection  of  his  govern- 
ment in  any  conflict  or  difficulty  arising  out  of  the  traffic. 
Such  a  measure  was  proposed  in  1858  concerning  the 
opium  trade,  by  the  plenipotentiary  of  the  United  States 
to  China.  In  a  letter  to  Lord  Elgin,  Mr.  W.  B.  Reed 
suggested  that  the  two  governments  should  unite  "  in 
urging  upon  the  Chinese  authorities  the  active  and  thor- 
ough suppression  of  the  trade  by  seizure  and  confisca- 
tion, with  assurances  that  no  assistance,  direct  or  indi- 
rect, shall  be  given  to  parties,  English  or  American,  seek- 
ing to  evade  or  resist  the  process."  ^  By  the  laws  of  war 
certain  articles  are  liable  to  be  seized  and  confiscated  as 
contraband  of  war.  It  is  time  that  the  law  of  nations 
should  brand  certain  kinds  of  traffic  as  contraband  of 
peace,  contraband  of  civilization,  and  outlawed  from  the 
protection  of  public  law.  If  the  accidental  introduction 
of  contagious  diseases  by  civilized  man  among  the  abo- 
rigines of  the  Pacific  is  deplored  as  a  scandal  to  Chris- 
tendom, if  the  traffic  in  human  flesh  is  declared  piracy  by 
the  law  of  nations,^  then  surely  any  traffic  in  immoral- 
ities, to  the  destruction  of  a  weaker  people,  should  be  put 
under  the  ban  of  Christendom. 

How  to  open  commerce  with  barbarous  tribes  is  some- 
times a  difficult  problem  ;  and  thei-e  is  need  on  this  point 
of  concert  among  Christian  nations,  lest  ill-advised  action 
on  the  part  of  one  should  prejudice  the  interests  of  all. 
As  a  rule  it  might  be  said  that  this  should  be  left  to  the 

1  British  Opium  Policy,  by  F.  S.  Turner,  p.  92. 
'  In  1820  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  declared  the  slave- 
trade  to  be  piracy,  to  be  punished  with  death. 


118    INTERCOURSE  WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

private  enterprise  of  trade.  But  it  has  happened,  and 
will  happen  again,  that  injudicious  or  unscrupulous  trad- 
ers will  bring  on  a  collision  with  tribes  ignorant  of  the 
customs  of  trade,  by  awakening  the  prejudices  or  fears 
of  the  people,  or  the  jealousy  of  their  rulers.  A  trader 
is  robbed  or  murdered,  his  government  steps  in  to  avenge 
the  wrong,  and  a  cruel  war  ends  in  a  treaty  of  commerce 
under  which  the  vanquished  are  restive  until  the  oppor- 
tunity comes  for  their  revenge.  When  at  last  the  opium 
traffic  was  forced  upon  China,  the  Emperor  Tao  Kwang 
said,  "  Gainseeking  and  corrupt  men  will  for  profit  and 
sensuality  defeat  my  wishes;  but  nothing  will  induce  me 
to  derive  a  revenue  from  the  vice  and  misery  of  my  peo- 
ple." ^  Though  there  are  no  mails  nor  telegraphs,  the 
suspicion  has  gone  abroad  among  non-Christian  peoples 
that  the  advent  of  Christian  commerce  means  encroach- 
ment, usurpation,  fraud,  wrong  t—  perhaps,  by  and  by, 
armed  dominion  and  extirpation.  I  would  not  impugn 
the  duty  of  a  government  to  look  after  the  safety  and 
lives  of  its  subjects  in  all  parts  of  the  world  —  to  hold 
the  very  hair  of  the  head  sacred  from  injury  or  insult. 
But  in  these  times  of  incessant  emigration  and  locomo- 
tion, if  Christian  governments  would  not  be  in  incessant 
war  with  the  ruder  tribes  of  men,  they  should  pause  to 
inquire  into  the  right  and  wrong  of  their  own  subjects 
before  they  threaten  and  strike  their  assailants.  As  hu- 
man nature  is,  offenses  must  come  ;  and  I  would  not  pre- 
tend that  it  is  possible  wholly  to  dispense  with  force  and 
terror  in  dealing  with  barbarous  tribes.  Yet  the  sad 
lesson  of  Ashantee  and  Dahomey  may  be  a  commentary 
upon  the  old  policy  of  putting  force  first,  and  commerce 
and  justice  afterwards.  Patience  might  sometimes  win 
a  surer  conquest  than  precipitate  action.  I  cannot  for- 
get that  not  many  years  ago  one  needed  a  passport  for 
^  British  Opium  Policy,  by  F.  S.  Turner,  p.  120. 


GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY.  119 

every  petty  state  of  Europe  ;  that  luggage  was  searched 
at  every  frontier ;  that  on  entering  Tuscany,  Rome,  Na- 
ples, one  had  to  secrete  his  Bible  and  the  "  Times  ; "  that 
English  political  works  were  seized  at  the  Russian  cus- 
tom-house ;  that  republican  pamphlets  or  newspapers 
made  the  traveler  liable  to  arrest  in  Austria  as  a  suspi- 
cious person ;  that  even  now  the  innocent  through  trav- 
eler from  Berlin  to  Paris  or  London  is  roused  at  mid- 
night, and  compelled  to  go  into  a  pen  under  guard,  while 
his  hand-bag  is  examined,  lest  he  should  turn  pedler  in 
Belgium ;  and  that  we  cannot  get  out  of  this  hospitable 
city  of  Bremen  without  being  examined  at  the  doiiane  as 
if  our  purpose  were  to  smuggle  free  goods  to  foreign 
parts ;  and  remembering  these  blights  on  our  own  in- 
tercourse, we  should  have  forbearance  with  our  weaker 
brethren  of  Ashantee  and  Dahomey,  whose  methods  of 
challenging  the  persons  and  goods  of  foreigners  are 
rougher  than  ours,  but  are  part  of  the  same  system.  The 
tariff  stretched  along  the  Atlantic  coast  to  keep  out  the 
goods  of  England,  France,  and  Germany  may  be  as  pre- 
posterous, and  in  the  view  of  political  economy  as  bar- 
barous, as  the  hawser  stretched  across  the  Niger ;  but  it 
is  not  proposed  to  force  the  tariff  by  gunboats  and  iron- 
clads. Let  not  Christian  powers  do  to  the  weak  what 
they  would  not  dare  attempt  with  the  strong. 

Once  more,  with  respect  to  commerce,  when  this  is 
opened  in  any  new  quarter  of  the  globe  it  should  be  for 
the  common  behoof  of  mankind.  That  priority  of  dis- 
covery, or  actual  colonization,  should  secure  to  a  nation 
certain  commercial  privileges  by  way  of  recompense  for 
its  outlay  and  risks,  lies  in  the  very  reason  of  things. 
To  deny  this  would  be  to  take  away  one  great  stimulus 
to  geographical  discovery  and  commercial  enterprise. 
But  such  special  privilege,  like  copyright  or  patent-right, 
should  be  for  a  limited  period,  by  way  of  reimbursement 


120    INTERCOURSE  WITH  NON-CIIRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

for  toil  and  skill  laid  out ;  it  should  never  be  suffered  to 
grow  to  a  permanent  monopoly.  Tliis  is  the  age  of  the 
solidarity  of  nations ;  and  though  the  nation,  like  the 
individual,  must  care  first  for  self  in  order  to  be  capable 
of  caring  for  mankind,  yet  each  nation  should  look  upon 
the  prosperity  of  every  other  with  a  favor  next  to  its 
own.  A  good  example  of  this  international  comity  in 
commerce  was  given  by  the  United  States  in  their  treaty 
with  China  in  1845.  Having  secured  certain  extraordi- 
nary concessions  beyond  those  made  to  England,  — such 
as  the  erection  of  hospitals,  chapels,  and  cemeteries  at 
the  five  ports,  and  permission  to  ships  of  war  to  visit  any 
part  of  the  coasts  of  China,  —  the  United  States  stipu- 
lated that  the  same  privileges  should  be  extended  to  all 
nations.  In  this  spirit  should  the  pioneers  of  commerce 
prepare  the  way  for  the  unification  of  humanity.^ 

III.  Humanity.  The  law  of  nations  has  long  ago 
settled  the  right  of  governments,  severally  or  collectively, 
to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  other  peoples,  "  where  the 
general  interests  of  humanity  are  infringed  by  the  ex- 
cesses of  a  barbarous  and  despotic  government."  ^     The 

^  The  ablest  writers  regard  the  system  of  international  law  as 
open  to  amendment,  especially  so  far  as  it  is  based  upon  customs 
now  antiquated.  In  this  view  Dr.  Bluntschli  has  sought  to  formu- 
late all  recognized  usages  and  principles  in  his  able  work,  Dan  Mo' 
derne  Volkerrccht  der  civilisirten  Staaten  als  liechtsbuch  dartjestellt. 
Professor  Sheldon  Amos  believes  the  advance  in  the  law  of  nations 
will  be  in  "  the  influence  of  well-ascertained  ethical  principles  and 
formal  convention  "  as  compared  with  customary  usages.  See  his 
edition  of  Manning's  Commentaries  on  the  Law  of  Nations  (p.  85). 
In  this  useful  work  the  question  is  well  put,  How  far  "  what  shall  he 
the  practice  of  states  "  shall  be  dependent  upon  "what  has  been  the 
practice  of  states  "  under  the  usages  of  "a  less  civilized  period." 
The  same  powers  that  keep  the  law  of  the  past  are  competent  to 
make  the  law  of  the  future.  This  they  should  not  leave  to  prece- 
dent nor  to  accident. 

8  Wheaton,  pt.  II.  c.  1. 


PRINCIPLE   OF  UUMANITY.  121 

eight  contracting  Powers  to  the  treaty  of  Paris  in  1814 
agreed  to  take  measures  for  the  suppression  of  the  slave- 
trade,  jia  "  a  scourge  which  has  so  long  desolated  Africa, 
degraded  Europe,  and  afflicted  humanity."  By  the 
treaty  of  London,  July  6,  1827,  France,  Great  Britjiin, 
and  Russia  interfered  in  the  affairs  of  Greece,  as  much  in 
the  interest  of  humanity  as  of  the  repose  of  Europe.^ 
The  pirate  is  treated  as  hostis  humani  generis. 

The  principle  here  is  phiin  ;  inhumanity  tends  to  bar- 
barize the  human  race  and  so  make  the  world  unfit  for 
the  abode  of  man  ;  and  the  ties  of  brotherhood  in  the  hu- 
man family  oblige  the  strong  to  care  for  the  weak,  the 
free  for  the  oppressed,  all  for  each,  and  each  for  all.  But 
this  principle  should  not  be  pressed  to  the  extreme  of 
armed  interference  except  in  the  last  resort,  when  the 
wrongs  inflicted  on  the  helpless  outrage  humanity,  and 
protest  and  remonstrance  have  been  used  in  vain.  That 
the  outrages  committed  by  the  Turks  in  Bulgaria  in 
May,  1876,  call  for  such  intervention  on  the  part  of 
Christian  powers,  the  spontaneous  outburst  of  public 
sentiment  throughout  Christendom,  the  accord  of  press, 
politicians,  and  people  clearly  shows.  After  every 
abatement  is  made  for  the  rumors  and  exaggerations  of 
war,  and  every  allowance  for  the  excesses  of  a  panic,  of 
religious  hatred,  and  of  an  irregular  soldiery,  the  report 
of  the  American  consul-general  at  Constantinople  is  a 
tale  of  horrors  that  summons  the  Christian  powers  to 
deal  resolutely  with  Turkey,  in  the  name  of  outraged 
humanity  and  of  public  law.  Mr.  Eugene  Schuyler  is  a 
gentleman  of  large  experience  in  affairs,  of  mature  judg- 
ment, of  a  candid  and  resolute  spirit.  He  knows  both 
Slavic  and  Oriental  tongues  and  the  habits  of  Slavic  and 
Oriental  peoples.  Neither  he  nor  his  nation  has  the  re- 
motest possible  interest  in  the  political  affairs  of  Turkey. 
1  Wheaton,  pt.  II.  c.  1. 


122    INTERCOURSE  WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

Purely  in  the  interest  of  truth  and  humanity  he  has  trav- 
ersed the  desolated  region  of  Bulgaria,  and  his  report  to 
the  American  minister  is  the  result  of  careful  personal 
investigation.  I  allow  myself  to  quote  just  enough  of 
the  horrible  story  to  make  clear  the  summons  of  interna- 
tional duty.  The  first  extract  relates  to  the  town  of 
Panagurishta  (Otluji-kui). 

"  Four  hundred  buildings,  including  the  bazaar  and  the  lar- 
gest and  best  houses,  were  burned.  Both  churches  were  com- 
pletely destroyed,  and  almost  leveled  to  the  ground.  In  one  an 
old  man  was  violated  on  the  altar  and  afterwards  burned  alive. 
Two  of  the  schools  were  burned,  the  third  —  looking  like  a  pri- 
vate house  —  escaped.  From  the  numerous  statements  made 
to  me,  hardly  a  woman  in  the  town  escaped  violation  and  brutal 
treatment.  The  ruffians  attacked  children  of  eight  and  old 
women  of  eighty,  sparing  neither  age  nor  sex. 

"  Old  men  had  their  eyes  torn  out  and  their  limbs  cut  off,  and 
were  there  left  to  die,  unless  some  more  charitably-disposed 
man  gave  them  the  final  thrust.  Pregnant  women  were  ripped 
open  and  the  unborn  babes  carried  triumphantly  on  the  points 
of  bayonets  and  sabres,  while  little  children  were  made  to  bear 
the  dripping  heads  of  their  comrades.  This  scene  of  rapine, 
lust,  and  murder  was  continued  for  three  days,  when  the  sur- 
vivors were  made  to  bury  the  bodies  of  the  dead.  The  perpe- 
trators of  these  atrocities  were  chiefly  regular  troops  com- 
manded by  Hafiz  Pacha. 

"While  pillage  reigned  supreme  at  Kopriahtitsa  and  lust  at 
Panagurishta,  at  Batak  the  Turks  seemed  to  have  no  stronger 
passion  than  the  thirst  for  blood.  This  village  surrendered 
without  firing  a  shot,  after  a  promise  of  safety,  to  the  Bashi- 
Bazouks,  under  the  command  of  Ahmed  Aga  of  Burutina,  a 
chief  of  the  rural  police.  Despite  his  promise,  the  few  arms 
once  surrendered,  Ahmed  Aga  ordered  the  destruction  of  the 
village  and  the  indiscriminate  slaughter  of  the  inhabitants, 
about  a  hundred  young  girls  being  reserved  to  satisfy  the  lust 
of  the  conqueror  before  they,  too,  should  be  killed.  I  saw  their 
bones,  some  with  the  flesh  still  clinging  to  them,  on  the  hollow 


ATROCITIES  IN  BULGARIA.  123 

on  the  hillside,  where  the  dogs  were  gnawing  thena.  Not  a 
house  is  now  standing  in  the  midst  of  this  lovely  valley.  The 
saw-mills  —  for  the  town  had  a  large  trade  in  timber  and  sawn 
boards  —  which  lined  the  rapid  little  river  are  all  burned,  and 
of  the  8,000  inhabitants  not  2,000  are  known  to  survive.  Fully 
5,000  persons,  a  very  large  proportion  of  them  women  and 
children,  perished  here,  and  their  bones  whiten  the  ruins  or 
their  putrid  bodies  infect  the  air.  The  sight  of  Batak  is  enough 
to  verify  all  that  has  been  said  about  the  acts  of  the  Turks  in 
repressing  the  Bulgarian  insurrection.  And  yet  I  saw  it  three 
months  after  the  massacre.  On  every  side  were  human  bones, 
skulls,  ribs,  heads  of  girls  still  adorned  with  braids  of  long  hair, 
and  even  complete  skeletons  still  encased  in  clothing.  Here 
was  a  house  the  floor  of  which  was  white  with  the  ashes  and 
charred  bones  of  thirty  persons  burned  alive  there.  Here  was 
the  spot  where  the  village  notable,  Trandafil,  was  spitted  on  a 
pike  and  then  roasted,  and  where  he  is  now  buried ;  there  was 
a  foul  hole  full  of  decomposing  bodies  ;  here  a  mill-dam  filled 
with  swollen  corpses;  here  the  school-house  where  two  hundred 
women  and  children,  who  had  taken  refuge  there,  were  burned 
alive,  and  here  the  church  and  churchyard  where  fully  a  thou- 
sand half-decayed  forms  were  still  to  be  seen,  filling  the  inclo- 
sure  in  a  heap  several  feet  high,  arms,  feet,  and  heads  protruding 
from  the  stones  which  had  vainly  been  thrown  there  to  hide 
them,  and  poisoning  all  the  air." 

Unfortunately  for  the  interests  of  humanity,  the  same 
treaty  of  Paris  that  admitted  Turkey  to  the  concert  of 
European  public  law  stipulated,  in  its  ninth  article, 
that  the  Firman  of  reforms  an^  obligations  then  issued 
by  the  Porte  "  cannot,  in  any  case,  give  to  the  said 
[contracting]  Powers  the  right  to  interfere,  either  collec- 
tively or  separately,  in  the  relations  of  his  majesty  the 
Sultan  with  his  subjects,  nor  in  the  internal  administration 
of  his  empire."  But  surely  Turkey,  who  has  broken  all 
her  pledges,  could  not  be  allowed  the  benefit  of  this  pro- 
vision to  cover  such  atrocities.     Back  of  the  relation  of 


124     INTERCOURSE   WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

individuals  to  a  particular  nation  lies  their  relation  to  the 
human  family,  and  when  this  is  outraged,  mankind  have 
a  common  interest  and  a  common  right  in  demanding 
redress.  No  plea  of  "domestic  relations"  can  avail 
against  an  interference  to  shield  humanity  from  outrage. 
Even  though  the  offending  Power  have  no  status  in  the 
family  of  nations,  its  victims  belong  to  the  family  of 
man,  and  as  such  have  a  claim  to  intervention. 

The  case  of  Bulgaria  should  be  made  exemplary ; 
whether  by  compelling  Turkey  to  renounce  her  domin- 
ion, or  to  restore  the  desolated  district,  recompense  the 
survivors,  and  punish  the  perpetrators  of  the  outrages, 
would  be  for  the  Powers  to  determine.  What  concerns 
this  association  is  that  whatever  is  done  in  the  premises 
should  be  done  not  through  the  prejudice  of  race  or  re- 
ligion, nor  through  the  mere  impulse  of  humanity  as  a 
sporadic  feeling,  but  upon  principles  of  law  that  shall  be 
at  once  a  precedent  and  a  restraint.  We  must  not  dic- 
tate to  Turkey  what  we  would  not  also  dictate  to  Spain, 
in  the  event  of  a  political  or  religious  persecution,  or  of 
outrages  in  Cuba ;  what  we  would  not  dictate  to  the 
United  States,  to  England,  to  Russia,  in  the  event  of 
their  violating  humanity  in  feebler  tribes.  Public  law 
must  be  law  to  the  Powers  that  give  it,  as  well  as  to  the 
peoples  on  whom  they  impose  it. 

IV.  Public  Peace  and  Order.  The  right  of  in- 
terference "  where  the  interests  and  safety  of  other 
powers  are  immediately  affected  by  the  internal  transac- 
tions of  a  particular  state,"  ^  has  perhaps  been  much 
more  insisted  upon,  and  much  oftener  practiced,  than 
any  other  form  of  intervention.  The  interference  of  the 
Great  Powers  in  Naples  in  1820,  in  Spain  in  1822,  in 
Greece  in  1827,  in  Belgium  in  1830,  was  justified  upon 
the  ground  of  public  peace  and  order.  The  preamble  to 
1  Wheaton,  pt.  II.  c.  1. 


PRINCIPLE  OF  PUBLIC  ORDER.  125 

the  treaty  of  France,  Great  Britain,  and  Russia  for  inter- 
vention in  Greece  sets  forth  that  the  Powers  are  "  pene- 
trated with  the  necessity  of  putting  an  end  to  the  san- 
guinary contest,  which,  by  delivering  up  the  Greek 
provinces  and  the  isles  of  the  Archipelago  to  all  the  dis- 
orders of  anarchy,  produces  daily  fresh  impediments  to 
tlie  commerce  of  the  European  states  and  gives  occasion 
to  piracies,  which  not  only  expose  the  subjects  of  the 
high  contracting  parties  to  considerable  losses,  but,  be- 
sides, render  necessary  burdensome  measures  of  protec- 
tion and  repression."  There  can  be  no  question  of  the 
right,  nay,  the  obligation  of  Christian  nations  to  do  all 
in  their  power  to  preserve  the  peace  of  the  world.  Nei- 
ther can  it  be  questioned  that  as  self-preservation  is  the 
first  instinct  of  the  individual,  so  the  right  of  self-preser- 
vation is  the  first  law  of  nations.  But  the  danger  that 
threatens  a  nation  must  be  direct  and  imminent  to  justify 
its  interference  in  the  affairs  of  a  neighbor,  and  the  en- 
deavor to  preserve  the  public  peace  and  order  should 
never  be  to  the  prejudice  of  liberty  or  right.  It  is 
within  recent  history  that  both  these  pleas  have  been 
used  by  arbitrary  governments  as  a  pretext  for  suppress- 
ing neighboring  revolutions  that  were  grounded  in  jus- 
tice. The  now  exploded  doctrine  of  *'  the  balance  of 
power"  was  liable  to  the  same  perversion.  But  the 
usMge  of  Christian  powers  in  Europe  as  to  intervention 
for  public  order  may  serve  as  a  guide  to  their  duty  in 
this  direction  toward  non-Christian  peoples. 

It  has  been  fitly  said  that  "justice  is  the  common  con- 
cern of  mankind."  Much  rather  is  it  their  supreme 
dut}' ;  and  Christian  nations,  that  themselves  profess  to 
be  governed  by  justice,  are  under  obligation  to  realize 
the  noble  saying  of  Savigny  concerning  the  law  of  na- 
tions, that  "  its  first  and  unavoidable  vocation  is  to  make 
the  idea  of  right  supreme  and  controlling  [Jierrschend  zu 


126    INTERCOURSE  WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

machen]  in  the  visible  world."  ^  A  notable  example 
was  given  in  the  union  of  British  and  American  squad- 
rons for  the  police  of  the  coast  of  Africa  against  the  slave 
trade.  To  the  United  States  belongs  the  honor  of  first 
effectually  suppressing  piracy  in  the  Mediterranean. 
The  time  is  ripe  for  a  concerted  movement  in  advance ; 
for  a  union  of  Christian  powers  to  make  impossible  such 
outbreaks  of  violence,  rapine,  and  cruelty  as  in  recent 
3'ears  have  brought  savagery  into  dii*ect  conflict  \ni\\  civ- 
ilization. The  horrors  of  Syria  and  Bulgaria,  the  bloody 
massacres  of  China  and  Africa,  should  be  forestalled  by 
the  certainty  of  swift  and  decisive  retribution.  By  their 
own  example  of  arbitration,  Christian  powers  can  gain 
the  right  of  control  over  the  sanguinary  passions  of  non- 
Christian  peoples.  Happy  will  it  be  when  armaments 
shall  serve  only  for  the  police  of  the  \yorld,  and  the  one 
use  of  war  shall  be  as  a  menace  for  restraining  war  I 

V.  Religion.  The  law  and  usage  of  Christian  na- 
tions concerning  intervention  upon  religious  grounds,  I 
do  not  scruple  to  say,  call  for  a  thorough  revision  to 
meet  the  conditions  of  the  nineteenth  century.  In  the 
Middle  Ages  the  present  condition  of  the  Christian  peo- 
ples of  Turkey  would  have  roused  all  Europe  to  a  cru- 
sade for  the  expulsion  of  Mohammedan  rule.  Three 
centuries  ago,  the  atrocities  in  Bulgaria,  exceeding  even 
those  in  Bohemia,  would  have  brought  Gustavus  Adol- 
phus  like  a  whirlwind  of  retribution  from  the  north. 
Two  centuries  ago  Cromwell  and  the  Great  Elector 
would  have  made  persecution  quail  by  the  threat  of  their 
swords.  Not  only  is  the  time  for  such  intervention  gone 
by,  but  the  interests  both  of  society  and  of  religion 
should  forbid  its  return.  Such  intervention  implies  not 
only  that  the  state  makes  religion  its  concern,  but  also 
makes  itself  the  champion  of  some  specific  faith  or  form. 
^  System  des  Romischen  Rechls,  b.  I.  cap.  ii.  p.  9,  25. 


RELIGIOUS  INTERVENTION.  127 

Four  centuries  ago  it  was  civilization  itself  that,  under 
the  banner  of  the  cross,  on  the  plains  of  Hungary,  con- 
tested with  the  Turks  the  fate  of  Europe.  There  was 
then  no  state  of  Europe  that  was  not  in  and  of  the 
church.  The  very  existence  of  civilized  society  was 
identified  with  the  maintenance  of  the  Christian  faith. 
To-day,  in  the  nations  of  Europe  foremost  in  the  learning 
and  arts  of  modern  civilization,  it  is  openly  proclaimed  in 
the  name  of  science  that  the  Christian  faith  is  an  anti- 
quated superstition,  and  the  church  a  hindrance  to  en- 
lightened progress. 

When,  at  the  Reformation,  Christianity  itself  was  di- 
vided into  hostile  camps,  church  interests  were  still  so 
closely  bound  up  with  the  state  that  the  civil  powers 
almost  of  necessity  took  sides  in  the  conflict  of  faiths. 
But  these  are  the  days  of  mutual  toleration,  of  parity  of 
confessions,  of  religious  freedom  and  the  rights  of  con- 
science. How  is  it  then  longer  possible  for  a  state  to  in- 
tervene for  any  particular  form  or  faith  in  religion,  with- 
out going  back  upon  those  very  principles  that  have 
brought  the  state  and  religion  to  their  present  position  of 
intelligent  freedom  ?  Just  now  there  is  a  cry  for  inter- 
vention on  behalf  of  the  oppressed  Christians  in  Turkey. 
One  sympathizes  with  the  feeling  that  profnpts  that  cry, 
—  but  we  are  after  the  law  and  philosophy  of  such  inter- 
vention. Analyze  the  cry,  and  what  does  it  mean  ?  Let 
us  suppose  that  English  evangelicals  and  German  pietists 
join  in  the  demand  that  Turkey  shall  cease  to  molest  her 
Christian  subjects.  Might  not  Turkey  reply,  "  You  are 
the  very  parties  who  in  your  own  countries  invoke  the 
civil  power  against  the  Jesuits.  Now  these  Christians 
are  to  Turkey  what  you  conceive  the  ultramontanes  to 
be  to  England  and  Germany  —  an  element  of  danger  to 
the  state."  Sir  Robert  Phillimore  gives  an  apt  quota- 
tion from  Bolingbroke,  a  propos  of  the  queen's  media- 


128    INTERCOURSE  WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

tion  for  French  Protestants  in  1764.  "  He  saw  that  if 
Queen  Anne  demanded  too  much  of  France  for  Protest- 
ants, France  might  retort  with  demands  for  Irish  Ro- 
man Catholics."  ^  Happily  the  day  has  gone  by  when 
either  country  would  have  much  to  fear  from  the  recrim- 
inations of  the  other ;  but  the  keen-sighted  Bolingbroke 
perceived  that  religious  intervention  could  only  be  justi- 
fied on  the  principle  of  reciprocal  equality  of  practice. 
Are,  then,  those  who  demand  intervention  in  Turkey  on 
behalf  of  Christians,  as  such,  prepared  to  meet  the  logical 
and  equitable  consequences  of  this  demand  ?  Are  the 
Protestants  of  England  and  Germany  willing  that  their 
governments  should  interfere  to  exact  from  Turkey  the 
same  freedom  and  protection  for  Jesuits  and  ultramon- 
tane propagandists  which  they  desire  for  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries and  their  disciples?  Are  Spain  and  Austria 
ready  to  insist  upon  the  same  rights  for  Protestant  and 
Greek  Christians  that  they  would  demand  for  Roman 
Catholics  ?  Is  Russia  prepared  to  become  the  champion 
of  Roman  Catholics  and  Protestants  in  Turkey  ?  Un- 
less all  Christian  powers  are  prepared  to  act  in  concert 
in  demanding  religious  equality  in  Turkey  without  re- 
gard to  faith,  then  intervention  would  resolve  itself  into 
each  foreign  government  becoming  the  champion  of  a 
particular  sect,  and  thus  transferring  to  Turkey  the  re- 
ligious rivalries  of  Christendom.  Protestant  missiona- 
ries in  Turkey  do  not  hesitate  to  say  they  have  a  better 
assurance  of  religious  liberty  under  the  Turkish  govern- 
ment, bad  as  it  is,  than  they  could  hope  for  under  certain 
forms  of  Christian  rule  that  might  follow  in  its  stead. 

Again,  in  demanding  of  non-Christian  peoples  freedom 
and  protection  for  Christians,  as  such,  are  Christian  na- 
tions ready  to  allow  Turks  and  Chinese,  who  may  come  to 
reside  among  them,  absolute  immunity  in  all  the  customs 
1  Bolingbroke's  Letters,  iv.  121,  171,  172,  459, 


INTERVENTION  ON  RELIGIOUS  GROUNDS.        129 

and  practices  sanctioned  by  their  religions,  however  ab- 
horrent to  the  manners  and  morals  of  Christian  commu- 
nities ?  If  not,  then  upon  what  ground  can  the  interven- 
tion of  governments  in  matters  of  religion  be  advocated, 
save  that  each  government  should  constitute  itself  the 
champion  of  some  specific  form  of  faith,  thus  arming 
faiths  anew  for  conflict  in  Christendom,  and  making 
Christianity  a  scandal  among  non-Christian  peoples  ? 

In  the  present  stage  of  the  religious  question  the  fol- 
lowing principles  alone  seem  tenable. 

1.  Any  government  may  by  treaty  insist  that  its  own 
subjects  residing  among  another  people  shall  have  the 
free  exercise  of  their  religious  faith  and  worship ;  being 
ready  on  its  own  part  to  guarantee  the  same  right  to  sub- 
jects of  the  other  party  to  the  treaty. 

2.  Any  power  or  powers  may  interfere  in  behalf  of 
religion  in  any  state  by  which  said  intervention  is  in- 
voked. Sir  James  Mackintosh  says,  "Whatever  a  na- 
tion may  lawfully  defend  for  itself,  it  may  defend  for 
another  people,  if  called  upon  to  interpose."  Hence,  if  a 
people  attacked  on  account  of  their  religion  invoke  for- 
eign aid,  it  is  in  the  discretion  of  the  power  thus  invoked 
to  grant  such  aid.  But  by  parity  of  reasoning,  no  power 
should  interfere  in  another  country  in  a  matter  wherein 
it  would  not  suffer  itself  to  be  interfered  with.  A  nation 
should  always  be  ready  to  give  as  much  as  it  asks,  and 
no  nation  should  take  what  it  would  not  give. 

3.  The  Christian  powers  have  the  right  to  unite  in  de- 
manding of  all  peoples  the  absolute  freedom  of  religion. 
This,  as  a  right  of  conscience,  is  one  of  the  prime  rights  of 
humanity,  and  in  insisting  upon  this  there  is  no  savor  of 
zeal  for  any  particular  form  of  worship  or  of  faith.  The 
powers  have  a  right  to  interfere  for  religious  freedom  as 
a  naked  human  right ;  but  to  give  justice  and  efficacy  to 
such  intervention,  they  must  themselves  furnish  an  irre- 


130    INTERCOURSE  WITH  NON-CHRISTIAN  PEOPLES. 

proachable  example  of  impartiality  in  religion.  Any 
single  nation  may  make  itself  the  champion  of  universal 
religious  freedom  ;  and  the  more  enlightened  nations  are 
under  the  same  obligation  to  forbid  tyranny  over  con- 
science as  to  forbid  the  slave-trade. 

4.  If  religious  persecution  arises  among  any  people,  it 
is  not  only  the  right  but  the  duty  of  Christian  nations  to 
interfere  for  its  immediate  suppression  ;  but  this  purely 
and  solely  upon  grounds  of  humanity^  and  with  no  refer- 
ence whatever  to  the  creed  or  worship  that  is  assailed  by 
violence.  Christian  nations  should  be  as  forward  to  res- 
cue a  Mohammedan,  a  Buddhist,  a  fetish-worshiper  from 
outrage  and  torture,  as  the  disciple  of  any  form  of  the 
Christian  faith. 

6.  Aside  from  these  principles,  there  is  no  right,  and 
can  he  no  law  of  intervention  in  the  affairs  of  another 
people^  on  behalf  of  any  class  of  religionists  nor  of  any 
faith  or  worship  as  such. 

I  speak  here  only  of  intervention  by  governments^ 
which  must  hold  themselves  aloof  from  any  partisanship 
in  faiths.  But  there  remains  the  potency  of  public  sen- 
timent —  that  moral  intervention  which  is  more  effica- 
cious than  the  force  of  arms.  The  sword  of  Cromwell  is 
broken ;  the  magic  of  his  name  is  gone  ;  but  Milton's 
mighty  invocation,  "Avenge,  O  Lord,  thy  slaughtered 
saints  !  "  still  rings  the  knell  of  persecution.  The  words 
of  an  English  statesman  out  of  Parliament  may  be  more 
quoted  and  more  feared  than  the  policy  of  ministers,  the 
acts  of  Parliament,  or  the  movements  of  fleets. 

It  remains  only  to  sum  up,  in  few  words,  the  princi- 
ples that  should  govern  the  whole  intercourse  of  Chris- 
tian with  non-Christian  peoples. 

1.  That  intercourse  should  not  be  left  to  accident  or 
caprice,  but  conducted  upon  the  well-defined  basis  of 
law. 


FOUR   GENERAL  PRINCIPLES.  131 

2.  It  should  be  based  upon  the  recognition  of  all  peo- 
ples as  members  of  the  human  family,  and  entitled  to 
the  treatment  and  the  benefits  that  belong  to  men  as 
men. 

3.  It  should  recognize  and  express  the  obligation  of 
higher  and  more  favored  peoples  to  protect  the  weak 
and  elevate  the  low. 

4.  From  first  to  last  it  should  be  pervaded  by  the 
spirit  of  justice  and  make  justice  its  rule  and  end.  No 
nation  should  ever  do  to  a  weak  and  inferior  people  what 
it  would  not  dare  suggest  to  a  strong  and  equal  people. 
It  is  a  hundred  years  since  Dr.  Johnson  wrote,  "  There  is 
reason  to  expect  that  as  the  world  is  more  enlightened, 
policy  and  morality  will  at  last  be  reconciled,  and  that 
nations  will  learn  not  to  do  what  they  would  not  suffer."  ^ 
Judged  by  that  standard  what  progress  has  the  world 
made  in  enlightenment  since  Johnson's  day  ?  We  may 
not  forget  that  Christian  nations  are  responsible  to  man- 
kind and  to  posterity  for  the  impressiop  they  give  to 
non-Christian  peoples  of  Christianity  and  civilization. 
It  is  in  the  hope  that  something  may  be  done  to  elevate 
the  intercourse  between  these  ever-approaching  sections 
of  the  human  family,  that  I  respectfully  request  the  asso- 
ciation to  appoint  a  commission  to  suggest  rules  and 
measures  toward  that  end.  That  such  a  commission 
might  issue  in  an  international  Parliament  to  proclaim 
the  laws  of  civilized  intercourse,  the  good  auspices  at 
Brussels,  and  other  signs  of  the  times,  give  reason  to  ex- 
pect. 

1  "  Thoughts  on  Transactions  relating  to  the  Falkland  Islands.' 
Works,  vol.  xii.  pp.  123,  124. 


V. 

CONCERNING  TREATIES  AS  MATTER  OF  THE  LAW 
OF  NATIONS. 

(Prepared  for  the  "  Association  for  the  Beform  and  Codification  of  the  Law  of 
Nations,"  at  its  Conference  in  Antwerp,  August,  1877.) 

Among  the  sources  of  the  law  of  nations  some  writers 
assign  to  treaties  the  highest  value,  others  the  lowest. 
Grotius,  in  his  enumeration,  puts  treaties  after  usages, 
and  last  in  the  series,  as  matter  of  international  law,  — 
ipsa  natura,  leges  divince  mores,  et  pacta^  —  though  this 
may  represent  the  order  of  time  and  of  thought,  and  not 
the  gradation  of  value.  Heffter,  one  of  the  most  scien- 
tific and  exact  expounders  of  the  law  of  nations,  allows 
to  treaties  no  obligation  beyond  the  directly  contracting 
parties,  and,  even  in  their  widest  agreement  in  funda- 
mentals, no  application  beyond  the  attestation  of  a  com- 
mon accord  in  the  consciousness  and  conception  of  right. 
"  Ausserdem  ist  freilich  jeder  internationale  Vertrag  nur 
fiir  die  daran  Betheiligten  verbindlich,  und  selbst  eine 
Vielheit  von  Vertragen,  die  denselben  Grundsatz  prokla- 
miren  oder  zur  Grundlage  haben,  aber  unter  verschie- 
denen  Miichten  geschlossen  sind,  kann  an  und  fiir  sich 
Anderen  oder  gegen  Andere  kein  Recht  zur  Anwendung 
desselben  Grundsatzes  gewahren,  sondern  nur  zur  Be- 
glaubigung  eines  damit  einverstandenen  allgemeinen 
Kechtsbewusstseins  dienen."  ^ 
Much  to  the  same  effect  is  Bluntschli's  position,  that 
*  Das  Europdische  Volkerrecht  der  Gegenwarl.     Einleitung,  §  9. 


VIEWS  OF  EEFFTER,  BLUNTSCHLl,  AND  CALVO.     133 

treaties  do  not  in  the  first  instance  establish  a  rule  of  law, 
but  only  recognize  and  sanction  a  course  of  action  accord- 
ing to  legal  principles  which  derive  from  other  sources 
their  binding  force  and  authority.^  Many  other  writers, 
among  whom  may  be  mentioned  Manning  and  Philli- 
more,  rate  treaties  chiefly  "  as  evidence  of  the  cu»tomary 
law  of  nations,"  and  not  as  an  independent  and  authori- 
tative source  of  international  law.  Wheaton  says,  how- 
ever, "  an  almost  perpetual  succession  of  treaties,  estab- 
lishing a  particular  rule,  will  go  very  far  towards  proving 
what  the  law  of  nations  is  on  a  disputed  point." 

Calvo,  on  the  other  hand,  would  raise  treaties  from  the 
position  of  attesting  witnesses  to  the  matter  of  interna- 
tional law,  to  that  of  original  and  incontestable  sources 
of  the  law  itself.  He  looks  upon  treaties  as  not  only 
enunciating  or  confirming  rules  and  principles  already 
recognized  in  practice,  but  as  often  introducing  within 
the  domain  of  international  law  the  fruitful  germ  of  new 
ideas,  and  thus  preparing  the  way  for  the  higher  devel- 
opment of  the  comity  of  nations.  "  Le  droit  interna- 
tional a  sa  source  principale  dans  les  trait^s  par  lesquels 
les  Etats  fixent  et  d^terminent  leurs  relations  aussi  bien 
en  temps  de  guerre  qu'en  temps  de  paix.  De  meme  que 
la  loi  juridique  est  en  general  la  manifestation  du  droit, 
les  trait^s  conclus  entre  les  nations  sont  la  manifestation 
la  plus  efl&cace  et  la  plus  legitime  du  droit  international. 
.  .  .  Quelquefois  les  trait^s  affirment  les  principes  du 
droit  de  gens  g(jn<3ralement  reconnus,  ou  ^tablissent  des 
rdgles  particulieres  entre  les  contractants ;  d'autres  fois 
encore  ils  tranchent  des  questions  douteuses  ou  apportent 
dans  les  relations  internationales  le  germ  f^cond  de  nou- 
velles  id^es.     Dans  tous  les  cas,  etquelle  que  soit  la  na- 

^  Das  moderne  Volkerrecht  der  civilisirten  Staaten,  b.  i.  §  12. 
Manning,  Comm.  on  the  Law  of  Nations,  chap.  iii.  Fbillimore, 
Comm.  upon  International  Law,  part  I.  chap.  6. 


134         TREATIES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 

ture  ou  la  port<^e  de  leurs  stipulations,  les  traitds  sont  in- 
coiitestablement  la  source  la  plus  importante  et  la  plus 
irrecusable  du  droit  international."  ^ 

Kent  likewise  says  of  treaties,  "  By  positive  engage- 
ments of  this  kind,  a  new  class  of  rights  and  duties  is 
created,  which  forms  the  conventional  law  of  nations,  and 
constitutes  the  most  diffusive,  and  generally,  the  most 
important,  branch  of  public  jurisprudence."  ^ 

This  seeming  divergence  of  authorities  upon  the  value 
of  treaties  as  matter  of  the  law  of  nations  is  owing 
largely  to  the  fact  that  different  treaties,  and  sometimes 
portions  of  the  same  treaty,  are  characterized  by  quite 
different  features  —  the  one  sort  conventional  and  stip- 
ulatory,  the  other  ethical  and  declaratory.  Now,  the 
conventional  in  a  treaty  may  be  in  its  very  nature  local 
and  limited, — like  stipulations  concerning  territory  or 
commerce  ;  but  the  ethical  concerns  public  right  and  the 
welfare  of  mankind.  Hence  though  the  conventional  can 
be  adduced  simply  as  evidence  of  usage  in  the  law  of 
nations,  the  ethical  may  express  a  principle  of  universal 
obligation  and  of  humanizing  progress.  Keeping  in  view 
this  distinction,  we  shall  be  able  rightly  to  estimate  the 
proportionate  value  of  the  matter  of  treaties  to  the  law 
of  nations,  and  shall  find  reasons  for  concurring  in  the 
opinion  of  one  of  our  colleagues  (Professor  Sheldon 
Amos),  that  the  ethical  in  treaties  must  eventually  over- 
balance the  prescriptive  authority  of  custom.  "  Though 
the  customary  usages  of  states  in  their  mutual  intercourse 
must  always  be  held  to  afford  evidence  of  implied  assent, 
and  continue  to  be  a  main  basis  of  the  structure  of  the 
law  of  nations,  yet  there  are  several  circumstances  in 
modern  society  which  seem  to  indicate  that  the  region  of 
their  influence  wiU  become  increasingly  restricted  as  com- 

1  Calvo,  Droit  International,  i.  §  19. 

*  Commentaries  on  International  Law,  chap.  2. 


ETHICS  SUPERIOR  TO   CUSTOM.  135 

pared  with  that  of  well  ascertained  ethical  principles  and 
formal  convention."  ^ 

Indeed  the  main  hope  of  the  codification  and  reform  of 
the  law  of  nations  lies  in  this  assurance.  If,  as  Ileffter 
has  so  nicely  expressed  it,  international  law  betokens 
and  measures  the  common  legal  consciousness  —  that  is, 
the  consciousness  of  a  common  obligation  to  right  — 
among  the  nations,  then  must  we  base  the  permanence 
of  the  law  of  nations  upon  its  adaptation  to  the  advance 
of  human  society  in  morals  and  civilization.  This  adap- 
tation must  be  shown  in  practical  rules  which  are  ac- 
cepted as  just  and  useful,  and  in  ethical  principles  which 
are  felt  to  be  right ;  and  it  can  be  most  fitly  manifested 
through  formal  conventions  which  are  enforced  by  the 
universal  sense  of  moral  obligation.  International  law 
should  represent  the  solidarity  of  nations  in  interests, 
which  are  material  and  temporal,  and  in  responsibili- 
ties, which  are  human  and  moral. 

However  distant  this  ideal  may  seem,  every  sound  dis- 
criminating statement  of  the  essential  matter  of  inter- 
national law  is  a  step  towards  its  realization.  What, 
then,  at  the  present  stage  of  political  society,  is  the 
proper  estimate  of  treaties  as  matter  of  the  law  of  na- 
tions ? 

I.  No  treaty  can  be  of  perpetual  obligation  in  and  of 
itself.  A  treaty  quoad  treaty  is  of  a  friable  texture,- 
however  durable  in  substance  may  be  the  several  items 
that  are  cast  in  this  particulai*  mould.  The  instability  of 
human  nature  forbids  the  hope  that  any  treaty  will  con- 
tinue to  be  held  sacred  merely  because  the  original  con- 
tracting parties  regarded  it  as  just  and  wise.  The  mo- 
rale of  a  nation  or  a  government  in  its  corporate  capacity 
is  apt  to  be  below  the  average  of  its  better  citizens  ;  and 
history,  unhappily,  has  made  us  too  familiar  with  breaches 
1  Note  to  Manning's  Commentaries,  chap.  2. 


136        TREATIES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 

of  faith  between  high  contracting  powers.  But  aside 
from  this,  the  circumstances  of  nations  so  change  with 
time  that  it  is  sometimes  impossible  or  morally  inexpe- 
dient for  one  or  other  of  the  parties  to  a  treaty  to  fulfill 
obligations  entered  into  by  foregoing  generations.  Quite 
often,  too,  a  treaty  embodies  concessions  or  pledges  ex- 
torted by  war,  or  conditions  and  expedients  of  temporary 
service,  which  cannot  be  permanently  wise  and  good. 
Hence  it  would  be  absurd  to  put  all  treaties  upon  record 
as  integral  parts  of  the  law  of  nations,  and  of  like  force 
and  value  in  determining  international  rights  and  obliga- 
tions. 

II.  No  treaty  is  in  form  obligatory  upon  any  but  the 
states  which  have  subscribed  it  as  parties  to  the  covenant. 
In  this  respect  a  treaty  between  states  resembles  a  con- 
tract between  private  individuals.  But  though  the  for- 
mal authority  of  a  treaty  is  thus  restricted  by  the  nature 
of  the  instrument,  its  contents  may  furnish  important 
matter  for  the  public  law  of  nations.  A  treaty  between 
two  or  more  Powers  may,  for  the  first  time,  formulate 
certain  principles,  —  as  for  instance  concerning  extradi- 
tion, arbitration,  naturalization,  allegiance,  the  ameliora- 
tion of  war,  the  rights  and  duties  of  neutrals,  —  which 
principles,  upon  being  enunciated,  commend  themselves 
to  the  moral  consciousness  of  mankind,  and  claim  univer- 
sal recognition.  Thus  the  inner  spirit  of  a  treaty  may 
awake  a  sense  of  obligation  far  beyond  the  limits  of  its 
formal  authority.  True,  this  wider  obligation  is  due  to 
the  principles  and  not  to  the  treaty  ;  yet  the  principles 
gain  a  certain  prominence  and  weight  by  virtue  of  the 
treaty  ;  and  when  several  of  the  more  enlightened  gov- 
ernments embody  the  same  ethical  principles  in  succes- 
sive treaties,  then  such  treaties  serve  not  only  to  attest 
the  usage  of  nations,  but  give  to  the  principles  a  certain 
sanction  as  matter  of  international  law.     "  Auch  in  den 


VALUE  OF  TREATIES.  137 

Vertragen,  welche  zuniichst  nur  unter  einzelnen  Staaten 
abgesclilossen  worden  sind,  sind  daher  manche  Bestiin- 
mungen  zii  finden,  welche  ihrem  Wesen  nach  Rechtsge- 
setze  und  keineswegs  blosse  Vertragsjirtikel  sind,  welche 
die  iiothwendige  Rechtsordnung,  niclit  die  Convenienz 
der  contrahirenden  Staaten  dartstellen."  ^ 

Sometimes  when  a  principle  or  rule  is  introduced  into 
a  treaty  for  the  first  time,  the  parties  to  the  treaty  avow 
that  this  is  intended  as  a  precedent,  to  be  thereafter  in- 
corporated into  the  law  of  nations.  In  such  a  case  other 
Powers  feel  bound  in  their  own  interest  to  take  notice  of 
the  declaration.  Thus,  in  the  treaty  of  Washington  of 
1871,  the  governments  of  the  United  States  and  of  Great 
Britain  laid  down  three  rules  by  which  "  a  neutral  gov- 
ernment is  bound."  At  the  same  time  they  agreed  to 
bring  these  rules  to  the  notice  of  other  maritime  Powers, 
and  to  invite  their  assent  to  the  same. 

III.  No  treaty  can  be  valid  as  matter  of  international 
law  which  contains  stipulations  contrary  to  the  natural 
rights  of  man,  or  to  the  just  rights  and  integral  welfare 
of  states  not  parties  to  the  treaty  ;  or  which  would  form 
the  contracting  parties  into  an  alliance  against  the  law- 
ful existence  and  well-being  of  other  states.  Phillimore 
lays  down  the  rule  that  "  no  treaty  between  two  or  more 
nations  can  affect  the  general  principles  of  international 
law  prejudicially  to  the  interest  of  other  nations  not  par- 
ties to  such  covenant."  ^  This  rule,  however,  in  its 
broad  terms,  could  hardly  be  maintained  ;  since  it  would 
create  a  perpetual  barrier  to  the  amendment  of  the  law 
of  nations.  There  are  "  general  principles  of  interna- 
tional law  "  which  have  become  antiquated  by  the  prog- 
ress of  society,  but  which  it  might  still  be  for  "  the  inter- 
est "  of  particular  nations  to  maintain.     Or  it  might  be 

^  Blnntsclili,  Das  moderne  Volkerrecht.     Einleitung,  p.  5. 
^  Commentaries,  part  I.  chap.  6. 


138        TREATIES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 

for  the  "  interest "  of  certain  nations  to  adhere  to  usages 
proscribed  by  modern  civilization  —  such  as  the  slave- 
trade  and  privateering  —  at  which  the  law  of  nations 
once  connived.  Hence  the  mere  fact  that  a  treaty  would 
"affect  prejudicially"  some  customary  material  ''inter- 
est of  other  nations  not  parties  to  tiie  covenant,"  cannot 
make  such  treaty  void  in  international  law.  The  treaty 
may  be  the  required  medium  for  introducing  a  whole- 
some reform  into  the  law  of  nations. 

But  it  is  quite  otherwise  when  a  treaty  would  infringe 
upon  the  essential  rights  of  man,  or  the  lawful  existence 
and  just  liberties  of  states  which  are  not  parties  to  the 
covenant.  No  covenant  of  powers  or  numbers  can  make 
injustice  valid. 

It  is  conceivable  that  states  might  be  justified  in  com- 
bining by  treaty  to  coerce,  subdue,  and  even  politically 
to  annihilate,  a  people  so  addicted  to  foray,  pillage, 
piracy,  the  slave-trade,  as  to  be  an  incorrigible  pest  to 
human  society.  Where  it  is  clear  beyond  dispute  that 
the  pestiferous  tribe  or  state  can  neither  be  curbed  nor 
reformed,  and  its  evil  courses  can  no  longer  be  endured, 
then  a  convention  of  states  for  the  destruction  of  this 
public  malefactor  would  violate  no  principle  of  the  law 
of  nations,  and  no  natural  right  nor  proper  interest  of 
mankind.  But  a  convention  of  states  to  force  upon  a 
state,  not  a  party  to  the  covenant,  laws  and  usages  of 
their  own,  or  some  immoral  or  hurtful  traffic,  or  to  par- 
tition among  themselves  the  territory  and  population  of 
a  foreign  state  because  its  institutions  and  usages  were 
not  congenial  to  their  own  —  such  a  convention,  thougli 
signed  by  all  the  Powers  save  its  victim,  could  contribute 
nothing  to  the  matter  of  international  law,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  would  be  ip90  facto  void  before  that  common 
consciousness  of  right  from  which  the  law  of  nations  de- 
rives its  highest  sanction.     No  treaty  could  be  valid  that 


SECRET  CLAUSES.  ,  139 

should  have  for  its  purpose  the  suppression  of  the  natu- 
ral rights  of  man,  —  such  as  personal  liberty,  the  posses- 
sion of  property,  the  inviolability  of  home,  freedom  of 
conscience,  —  or  that  should  form  a  league  against  the 
normal  existence  of  an  inoffensive  state.  No  treaty  could 
be  valid  in  international  law  that  should  have  for  its  ob- 
ject the  propagation  of  any  form  of  religious  faith  to  the 
destruction  or  injury  of  others,  as  of  Protestant  against 
Catholic,  Catholic  against  Protestant,  either  or  both 
against  Jewish,  Mohammedan,  or  Pagan.  The  so-called 
"  Holy  Alliance  "  of  1815,  in  so  far  as  it  brought  Cath- 
olic Austria,  Orthodox  Russia,  and  Protestant  Prussia, 
to  vow  together  that  the  precepts  of  their  common  Chris- 
tianity should  be  the  sole  guide  of  their  political  action 
at  home  and  abroad,  was  an  advance  in  the  international 
spirit  of  justice  and  fraternity.  But  inasmuch  as  the 
allied  Powers  declared  the  precepts  of  their  "  holy  relig- 
ion "  to  be  "  the  sole  means  of  consolidating  human  in- 
stitutions and  of  remedying  their  imperfections,"  the 
treaty  was  dogmatically  exclusive,  and  might  be  made 
fanatically  hostile  toward  non-Christian  peoples  ;  and 
hence  can  have  no  place  nor  authority  as  matter  of  the 
law  of  nations.  Leaving  each  nation  to  its  own  internal 
code  of  moi-als  and  its  own  sources  of  right,  —  Moses, 
Confucius,  Christ,  Mohammed,  —  the  law  of  nations  ad- 
mits to  the  benefits  of  its  code  all  who  are  willing  to 
abide  by  the  rule  of  right  as  developed  in  the  common 
consciousness  of  mankind. 

IV.  A  treaty  containing  secret  clauses  which  nullify 
its  open  professions  can  have  no  authority  in  the  law  of 
nations.  Cases  may  arise  —  as  during  the  Thirty  Years' 
War  in  Germany  —  in  which,  for  their  own  preservation 
or  for  some  common  cause,  states  can  rightfully  form  a 
secret  alliance,  offensive  and  defensive.  But  when  a 
treaty,  defining  the  relations  or  intentions  of  the  contract- 


140         TREATIES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 

ing  Powers  toward  other  Powers  or  to  the  general  wel- 
fare, is  openly  promulgated  to  inspire  public  confidence, 
and  said  treaty  is  found  afterwards  to  contain  secret 
clauses  which  contravene  its  open  declarations,  such 
treaty,  being  of  the  nature  of  a  fraudulent  contract,  is 
ipso  facto  void. 

The  negative  view  of  treaties  as  matter  of  the  law  of 
nations  being  exhausted  in  the  four  preceding  proposi- 
tions, a  few  words  will  suffice  to  set  forth  their  positive 
value. 

I.  Whatever  stipulations  in  a  treaty  tend  to  facilitate 
the  peaceful  intercourse  of  nations,  upon  the  assured 
basis  of  their  coordinate  and  correlative  rights,  are  of 
permanent  account  in  the  law  of  nations.  Of  this  char- 
acter are  arrangements  for  the  interchange  of  ambassa- 
dors and  consuls  ;  for  reciprocal  trade  ;  for  the  mutual 
enjoyment  and  protection  of  the  commerce. of  the  seas. 

II.  All  treaty  stipulations  for  the  common  protection 
of  human  society  against  vice  or  crime,  for  the  advance- 
ment of  knowledge  and  the  furtherance  of  mutual  good- 
will, belong  to  the  law  of  nations.  Such  are  treaties  for 
the  extradition  of  criminals  other  than  political  offenders  ; 
international  patent  and  copyright  laws ;  rules  of  expa- 
triation, naturalization,  and  the  like. 

III.  Treaties  made  in  the  interest  of  humanity,  and 
having  in  view  the  solidarity  of  nations  in  the  higher 
civilization,  are  of  the  greatest  value  and  promise  to  the 
law  of  nations.  Of  this  sort  are  stipulations  for  sup- 
pressing piracy  and  the  slave-trade ;  for  restricting  the 
occasions  of  war  and  mitigating  its  severities ;  for  re- 
specting the  obligations  of  humanity  in  the  movements 
of  armies  and  upon  the  field  of  battle ;  and  above  all, 
for  substituting  arbitration  and  the  moral  reason  for  the 
verdict  of  the  sword. 

Whatever  may  be  the  origin  of  treaties  such  as  these, 


SANCTITY  OF  TREATIES.  141 

how  insignificant  or  how  imposing  soever  the  number 
and  rank  of  their  signataries,  their  subject-matter  is  the 
very  stuff  the  law  of  nations  is  made  of ;  and  the  treaty 
that  contains  such  elements  and  seals  such  promises  car- 
ries within  itself  the  authority  of  the  moral  consciousness 
of  mankind,  demanding  universal  assent  to  its  principles 
and  aims. 

But  the  most  essential  point  concerning  treaties  as 
matter  of  the  law  of  nations  is  that  the  sanctity  of  the 
treaty  shall  be  inviolable  except  by  methods  provided  in 
the  treaty  itself  or  by  the  consensus  gentium,  for  amend- 
ing or  abrogating  the  terms  of  the  convention.  Unless 
this  point  shall  be  assured,  the  making  of  treaties  must 
degenerate  to  a  solemn  farce,  and  the  law  of  nations  to  a 
name  to  conjure  by  in  the  game  of  diplomacy.  The  law 
of  nations  as  a  working  power  is  strictly  coextensive 
with  the  sense  of  honor  or  good  faith  among  the  nations. 
Burke,  in  his  philippic  against  the  East  India  Company 
for  its  breach  of  faith  with  Hyder  Ali,  denounced  the 
men  "  who  either  would  sign  no  convention,  or  whom  no 
treaty  and  no  signature  could  bind,"  as  "  the  determined 
enemies  of  human  intercourse  itself."  ^  And  surely  the 
reciprocal  intercourse  of  governments  and  peoples  would 
be  impossible,  should  it  come  to  be  understood  that 
treaties  can  be  broken  with  impunity,  at  the  will  of 
either  of  the  contracting  powers,  either  with  or  without 
notice  to  the  others.  Yet  there  are  recent  indications 
that  the  civilized  world  is  unconsciously  drifting  toward 
such  a  wreck  of  international  faith.  Now  it  is  this  faith 
"  which  holds  the  moral  elements  of  the  world  together," 
and  hence  the  utmost  vigilance  must  be  used  against 
whatever  tends  to  weaken  or  disparage  it.  The  question 
whether  the  intercourse  of  nations  shall  be  ruled  by  law 
or  by  force  is  simply  the  question  between  faith  and  mis- 
*  Speech  on  the  Nabob  of  Arcot's  debts. 


142        TREATIES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 

trust.  Honor  and  faith  mean  law ;  suspicion  and  fear 
mean  force. 

Tlie  comity  of  this  association  forbids  the  criticism  of 
particular  acts  of  nations  which  have  entered  into  the 
concert  of  international  law,  nor  would  such  criticism  be 
pertinent  to  the  object  of  this  paper.  But  a  calm  state- 
ment of  the  present  phases  of  treaty  obligations  is  indis- 
pensable to  a  legal  estimate  of  the  treaties  themselves. 
One  notable  example  will  suffice  to  illustrate  the  state  of 
the  question. 

The  treaty  of  Paris  of  1856,  with  the  declaration  an- 
nexed to  it,  was  hailed  as  a  permanent  settlement  not 
only  of  the  Eastern  Question,  but  of  the  outstanding  ac- 
counts of  the  civilized  world  upon  all  questions  involved 
in  the  conduct  of  war.  By  abolishing  privateering,  de- 
fining blockade,  and  establishing  the  immunity  of  all 
goods  not  contraband  of  war,  the  declaration  sought  "  to 
settle  once  for  all  a  uniform  doctrine  "  of  maritime  law, 
and  in  lieu  of  heterogeneous  and  contested  usages,  "  to 
introduce  in  tliis  respect  fixed  principles  into  interna- 
tional relations."  The  gain  to  commerce  and  humanity 
from  these  rules  was  immense,;  and  the  fact  that  in  addi- 
tion to  the  seven  Powers  which  signed  the  declaration, 
about  forty  states  have  given  in  their  adherence  to  its 
principles,  would  seem  to  make  that  declaration  a  final 
authority  in  international  law.  The  rules  of  the  declara- 
tion are  still  respected,  both  by  belligerents  and  by  neu- 
trals ;  yet  the  treaty  of  Paris  is  already  regarded  in 
some  quarters  as  an  antiquated  document,  having  no  vi- 
tal force  !  Besides  the  broadly  human  principles  of  the 
declaration,  the  treaty  itself  marked  a  new  era  in  the 
law  of  nations,  by  incorporating  an  express  provision  for 
mediation  as  a  guarantee  against  a  renewal  of  war  upon 
the  so-called  "  Eastern  Question." 

"  Art.    8.   S'il   survenait,  entre   la   Sublime-Porte  et 


TUE  EASTERN  QUESTION.  143 

I'line  ou  plnsieurs  des  autres  puissances  signatuires,  un 
dissentiment  qui  niena^&t  le  maintien  de  leurs  relations, 
la  Sublime-Porte  et  chacune  de  ces  puissances,  avant  de 
recourir  i\  reniploi  de  la  force,  mettront  les  autres  parties 
contractantes  en  niesure  de  prdvenir  cette  extr<5mit<i  par 
leur  action  mddiutrice."  Cognate  to  this  was  the  provis- 
ion of  art.  29  concerning  intervention  in  Servia.  "  Au- 
cune  intervention  armde  ne  pourra  avoir  lieu  en  Servio 
sans  un  accord  prdalable  entre  les  hautes  puissances  con- 
tractantes." By  these  provisions  mediation,  hitherto 
but  an  occasional  expedient  under  emergencies,  was  ex- 
alted to  a  definitive  place  of  obligation  and  authority 
in  the  law  of  nations.  Unfortunately,  however,  for  the 
permanent  force  of  the  treaty  of  Paris  in  international 
law,  the  treaty  itself  contained  two  provisions  that  were 
almost  sure  to  work  its  disruption. 

In  the  first  place,  Turkey,  which  as  yet  had  given 
small  proof  of  either  disposition  or  ability  to  conform  to 
the  law  of  nations  as  observed  in  western  Europe,  was 
admitted  to  an  equal  status  in  the  concert  of  Europe, 
and  the  most  emphatic  pledges  were  given  by  the  other 
six  parties  to  the  treaty  "  to  respect  the  independence 
and  the  territorial  integrity  of  the  Ottoman  Em2)ire." 
"  Leurs  Majestes  s'engagent,  chacune  de  son  cotd,  h  re- 
specter I'inddpendance  et  I'intdgritd  territoriale  de  I'em- 
pire  Ottoman,  garantissent  en  commun  la  stricte  observa- 
tion de  cet  engagement,  et  considdreront,  en  consequence, 
tout  acte  de  nature  a  y  porter  atteinte  comme  une  ques- 
tion d'intdret  gdndral."     (Art.  7.) 

Not  content  with  this  sweeping  obligation  to  cherish 
and  defend  the  youngest  member  of  the  European  con- 
cert, the  Powers  seem  to  have  made  Turkey  the  pet  of 
their  confidence.  Though  the  firman  of  the  Sultan 
promising  to  his  subjects  civil  and  administrative  re- 
forms, without  distinction  of  race  or  religion,   was  the 


144         TREATIES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 

ground  upon  which  Turkey  was  admitted  to  the  concert 
of  Europe,  yet  the  Powers  disclaimed  any  right  of  mix- 
ing themselves  in  afifairs  between  the  Sultan  and  his 
subjects,  and  pledged  themselves  that,  in  the  event  of 
any  threatening  disturbance  in  the  principalities  of  the 
Ottoman  empire,  there  should  be  no  armed  intervention 
without  a  previous  agreement  among  the  Powers,  and 
then  only  at  the  instance  of  the  Sublime  Porte  itself. 
"  II  est  bien  entendu  qu'elle  ne  saurait,  en  aucun  cas, 
donner  le  droit  aux  dites  puissances  de  s'immiscer  soit 
collectivement,  soit  s^par^ment,  dans  les  rapports  de  Sa 
Majesty  le  sultan  avec  ses  sujets,  ni  dans  Tadniinistration 
int^rieure  de  son  empire."  (Art.  9.)  "  Si  le  repos  intd- 
rieur  des  Principautds  se  trouvait  menacd  ou  compromis, 
la  Sublime-Porte  s'entendra  avec  les  autres  puissances 
contractantes  surs  les  mesures.a  prendre  pour  maintenir 
ou  r<itablir  I'ordre  Idgal.  Une  intervention  armde  ne 
pourra  avoir  lieu  sans  un  accord  prdalable  entre  ces  puis- 
sances." (Art.  27.)  One  might  have  foreseen  that  such 
wholesale  guarantees  to  an  untried  order  of  things  would 
tend  to  precipitate  the  catastrophe  which  has  now  ren- 
dered them  null.  But  our  concern  is  not  with  the  un- 
wisdom of  certain  stipulations  of  the  treaty  of  Paris,  but 
with  the  preservation  of  that  public  faith  upon  which  all 
treaties  must  depend. 

A  second  suicidal  element  in  the  treaty  of  Paris  was 
the  neutralization  of  the  Black  Sea,  which  restrained 
Russia  and  Turkey  from  converting  its  shores  into  a 
naval  arsenal.  The  eleventh  and  thirteenth  articles  of 
the  treaty  were  especially  humiliating  to  Russia,  and 
were  dictated  more  by  the  exasperations  of  recent  war 
than  by  the  necessities  of  lasting  peace.  It  might  have 
been  foreseen  that  upon  regaining  the  consciousness  of 
strength,  Russia  would  refuse  to  be  hampered  by  such 
conditions.     Accordingly,    in   1870,   the   Russian    court 


NATIONAL  SENSE  OF  JUSTICE.  145 

notified  the  Powers  that  "  His  imperial  majesty  cannot 
any  longer  hold  himself  bound  by  the  stipulations  of  the 
treaty  of  30th  March,  1856,  as  far  as  they  restrict  his 
sovereign  rights  in  the  Black  Sea."  Here  again  our  con- 
cern is  not  with  the  stipulation  itself,  but  with  the  man- 
ner in  which  it  was  repudiated,  as  this  affects  the  public 
faith.  So  keenly  was  this  felt  that  when  the  signatary 
Powers  to  the  treaty  of  Paris  agreed  at  London  in  Janu- 
ary, 1871,  to  condone  the  act  of  Russia,  they  put  forth 
the  solemn  and  earnest  declaration  that  "it  is  an  essen- 
tial principle  of  the  law  of  nations  that  no  Power  can  re- 
lease itself  from  the  engagements  of  a  treaty,  nor  modify 
any  of  its  stipulations,  save  with  the  assent  of  the  con- 
tracting parties,  by  means  of  an  amicable  understand- 
ing." It  is  at  this  point  that  we  must  make  a  resolute 
stand,  if  faith  between  nations  is  to  be  maintained,  and 
treaties  and  laws  are  to  have  any  value  above  the  paper 
on  which  they  are  written.  It  may  sometimes  be  al- 
lowed to  sovereigns  or  judges  in  individual  states  to  set 
aside  a  local  law  as  obsolete,  though  it  has  not  been  re- 
pealed. But  no  such  discretion  can  be  conceded  to  any 
one  of  the  signers  of  a  treaty,  since  a  treaty  is  a  contract 
the  parties  to  which  must  be  held  together  by  mutual 
faith  and  mutual  respect. 

To  maintain  this  faith  the  first  resource  is  the  moral 
sentiment  of  just  men.  The  sense  of  justice  is  becoming 
more  and  more  potent  in  civilized  communities,  and  in 
none  could  it  be  disregarded  with  impunity.  But  this 
sentiment,  which  is  already  a  latent  bond  of  union  among 
civilized  peoples,  requires  to  be  developed  and  unified  in 
some  intelligent  and  practical  plan  of  action,  for  estab- 
lishing the  law  of  nations  upon  the  common  ground  of 
right,  and  maintaining  it  by  the  inviolableness  of  public 
faith.  The  present  perplexity  of  the  public  mind  in  re- 
spect to  treaties  and  their  obligations  is  opportune  for 
10 


146        TREATIES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 

some  concerted  movement  in  behalf  of  international 
faitli.  The  treaty  of  Paris  illustrates  both  the  negative 
and  the  positive  value  of  treaties  to  the  law  of  nations  ; 
it  embodies  the  conventional  and  the  ethical,  the  transi- 
toi*y  and  the  permanent ;  it  points  out  mistakes  to  be 
avoided  and  obligations  to  be  fulfilled.  The  conservation 
of  the  Ottoman  empire,  the  neutralization  of  the  Black 
Sea,  the  pacification  of  the  Provinces,  were  all  contingent 
upon  circumstances  that  could  not  be  foreseen  nor  con- 
trolled ;  and  hence  a  treaty  guaranteeing  these  things 
could  not  be  of  permanent  force  quoad  treaty.  On  the 
other  hand,  this  treaty  contains  principles  of  such  wisdom 
and  justice,  and  its  declaration  gives  rules  of  such  ob- 
vious utility,  that  the  essence  of  the  treaty  will  be  incor- 
porated with  the  law  of  nations,  whatever  may  become 
of  the  foi-m  of  this  particular  covenant.  Moreover,  the 
treaty  anticipates  the  difficulties  or  failures  that  might 
occur  in  carrying  out  its  stipulations,  and  provides  for 
remedying  these  by  mediation  and  the  concert  of  the 
Powers  —  a  principle  of  the  highest  moment  to  the  peace 
of  the  world  and  the  moral  advance  of  nations.  Yet  this 
treaty  has  suffered  a  sudden  and  somewhat  ignominious 
collapse.  Tiie  signataries  hardly  seem  to  know  whether 
or  not  it  still  exists  ;  if  they  would  invoke  it  on  some 
points,  they  would  ignore  it  on  others.  Some  accuse  one 
party,  some  another,  of  having  violated  the  clauses  touch- 
ing mediation  and  intervention ;  some  hold  that  the  pro- 
vision for  mediation  was  practically  met  by  the  confer- 
ence at  Constantinople,  others  that  it  was  violated  by  a 
preliminary  conference  from  which  one  of  the  signataries 
was  excluded.  In  this  hopeless  confusion,  that  which 
should  most  concern  us  is  the  collapse  of  international 
faith,  without  which,  as  we  iiave  seen,  international  law 
is  but  a  figment.  In  a  few  months  the  great  Powers  of 
Europe  will  be  summoned  to  form  a  new  treaty  of  peace, 


INTERNATIONAL  FAITH.  147 

supplanting  or  supplementing  the  treaty  of  Paris.  But 
we  want  no  more  of  specific  treaties  if  they  are  so  easily 
to  go  the  way  of  that.  What  the  law  of  nations  does 
require  is  a  broad  international  compact  of  accepted  prin- 
ciples, with  adequate  guarantees  of  international  faith. 

Is  this  notion  visionary  ?  On  the  contrary  it  is  di- 
rectly practical,  and  might  soon  be  realized  if  men  would 
set  resolutely  about  it.  True,  we  can  hardly  look  to 
governments  to  take  the  initiative  in  such  a  self-abne- 
gating reform.  Yet  governments  are  quick  to  feel  the 
pulse  of  public  sentiment,  and  sooner  or  later  they  must 
give  formal  and  authoritative  expression  to  the  spirit  of 
the  age.  Notwithstanding  the  din  of  warlike  preparation, 
the  governments  of  Europe  are  heartily  averse  to  war. 
The  sentiments  of  all  statesmen  are  expressed  in  these 
words  of  a  distinguished  general :  "  Happy  will  be  the 
time  when  states  shall  no  longer  be  in  a  position  which 
requires  them  to  expend  the  greater  part  of  their  income 
in  protecting  their  existence ;  but  when  parties  and  peo- 
ples shall  have  convinced  themselves  that  even  a  success- 
ful campaign  costs  more  than  it  brings,  since  it  can  be  no 
gain  to  purchase  material  good  with  the  lives  of  men." 
That  happy  time  will  come  when  states  shall  have  learned 
to  Took  upon  each  other  with  mutual  confidence  instead 
of  presumptive  suspicion  ;  and  this  again  will  be  when 
treaties  which  pledge  their  signataries  to  mediation  or  to 
concert  of  moral  action  shall  be  held  inviolable,  and  the  at- 
tempt to  set  aside  a  treaty  by  any  other  than  the  rational 
and  moral  methods  therein  described  shall  be  followed 
by  a  declaration  of  war  on  the  part  of  the  other  signata- 
ries against  the  offender.  In  other  words,  a  rational  and 
moral  adjudication  of  international  disputes  being  pre- 
scribed by  a  compact  of  the  Powers,  let  war  be  reserved 
as  the  penalty  for  a  breach  of  international  faith.  Thus 
honor,  confidence,  and  peace,  would  grow  to  be  the  normal 


148        TREATIES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 

condition  of  tilings,  and  every  government  would  gladly 
reduce  its  armament.  Hence  the  consummation  aimed  at 
through  a  lasting  compact  of  good  faith,  so  far  from  be- 
ing a  restriction  upon  governments,  would  greatly  aug- 
ment their  internal  strength  and  authority.  The  effort 
after  public  faith  in  the  hiw  of  nations  should  begin  in 
confidence  in  individual  governments  —  faith  in  their 
good  intentions ;  and  it  should  be  conducted,  not  in  the 
spirit  of  adverse  criticism  upon  governments,  but  with 
cordial  trust  in  these  real  bulwarks  of  the  social  order  of 
the  world. 

The  direct  and  obvious  steps  toward  a  permanent  in- 
ternational faith  are  these  four. 

1.  Since  so  many  permanent  ethical  points  of  union 
among  nations  are  to  be  found  in  treaties  to  which  all 
leading  Powers  from  time  to  time  have  given  their  as- 
sent, these  points,  omitting  whatever  is  local  and  conven- 
tional, should  be  codified,  and  formulated  scientifically, 
with  a  view  to  being  laid  before  the  governments  for 
specific  recognition.  If  it  were  in  the  power  of  this  as- 
sociation to  employ  a  trained  jurist  to  devote  his  whole 
time  to  this  preparatory  work,  the  office  would  be  worthy 
of  the  beneficence  of  a  Peabody  and  the  capacity  of  a 
John  Stuart  Mill.  The  materials  for  such  a  codification 
are  already  at  hand  in  the  valuable  collections  of  treaties 
and  other  diplomatic  documents  in  the  English,  French, 
and  German  languages. 

2.  Since,  with  the  single  exception  of  Russia,  all  the 
Powers  now  acting  in  the  Concert  of  Nations  have  a  par- 
liamentary form  of  government,  candidates  for  a  seat  in 
any  parliament  should  be  required  to  pledge  themselves 
to  consult  and  cooperate  with  the  governments  of  other 
countl-ies,  in  guaranteeing  the  mutual  faith  of  nations, 
and  the  moral  order  of  human  society.  The  sense  of 
justice,  the  desire  of  peace,  and  the  interests  of  trade  and 


FOUR  POSSIBLE  STEPS.  149 

finance,  are  strong  enough  in  all  civilized  peoples  to  se- 
cure this  legitimate  action  of  the  parliamentary  powers. 
Wisdom  and  courage  patiently  applied  to  this  line  of  di- 
rection will  surely  tell.  The  constitutional  makers  of 
law  in  each  nation  will  be  employed  to  secure  the  sanc- 
tion of  law  for  all  nations  in  their  common  interests. 
The  dangers  of  popular  vehemence  and  of  official  usurpa- 
tion are  alike  guarded  against  at  each  step  of  this  calm 
and  logical  procedure.  The  people  of  each  counti-y  sim- 
ply demand  that  their  rulers  shall  be  in  earnest  in  estab- 
lishing the  relations  of  the  country  with  all  others  upon 
the  firm  basis  of  justice  and  peace.  The  President  of  the 
United  States  has  openly  committed  himself  to  such  a 
pacific  policy. 

3.  A  commission  composed  of  deputies  from  each  of 
the  governments  shall  elaborate  and  approve  the  projet 
of  a  convention,  to  be  ratified  by  the  several  Powers. 
Upon  the  approval  of  its  labors  the  commission  shall  ex- 
pire, and  there  shall  be  nothing  of  the  nature  of  a  per- 
manent tribunal  above  the  several  governments,  but  on 
the  request  of  any  three  of  the  signataries,  the  govern- 
ments shall  send  deputies  to  a  new  commission  for  the 
revision  or  expansion  of  the  covenant,  —  any  changes  in 
the  same  to  be  determined  in  a  certain  fixed  and  equable 
ratio.  This  avoids  the  error  of  Kant,  James  Mill  and 
others,  in  attempting  to  constitute  a  permanent  congress 
or  tribunal.  It  respects  throughout  the  individuality  of 
each  nation,  and  seeks  to  rule  by  faith  rather  than  by 
forms. 

4.  If  a  party  to  the  treaty,  refusing  the  prescribed 
methods  of  complaint  and  consultation  for  its  amend- 
ment, shall  openly  and  defiantly  violate  the  covenant, 
said  government  shall  be  declared  without  the  pale  of  na- 
tions, and  subject  to  the  penalty  of  war. 

When  faith  is  thus  made  more  noble  than  force,  the 


150        TREATIES  AND  THE  LAW  OF  NATIONS. 

law  of  nations  shall  have  fulfilled  its  function  —  of  choos- 
ing the  good  in  each  nation,  that  by  combining  the  good 
from  all,  it  may  overwhelm  the  evil  that  lingers  in  any. 
No  scheme  of  international  law  could  provide  effectually 
against  misunderstanding,  caprice,  jealousy,  rivalry,  am- 
bition, and  the  occasional  outbreak  of  war.  Such  evils 
will  always  be  incident  to  human  organizations  ;  but  it 
is  believed  that  the  scheme  here  presented  would  reduce 
the  risk  to  a  minimum.  The  point  of  weakness  in  most 
plans  for  securing  the  observance  of  the  law  of  nations 
is  that  they  propose  an  impracticable  tribunal,  with  no 
power  to  enforce  its  decisions.  But  this  scheme  leaves 
the  sovereignty  of  each  nation  intact  ;  provides  how  a 
deliberative  convention  of  the  Powers  shall  be  summoned 
upon  an  emergency  ;  and  recognizing  that  persistent  vio- 
lence can  be  repressed  only  by  force,  it  reserves  the  mil- 
itary power  as  a  police  for  punishing  any  infraction  of 
the  public  peace,  any  violation  of  the  public  faith.  In 
the  nature  of  the  case  the  scheme  is  tentative  and  imper- 
fect ;  but  if  it  shall  serve  as  a  help  or  a  hint  to  others 
who  are  studying  the  same  problem,  the  writer  will  be 
more  than  recompensed. 


VI. 

ON  INTERNATIONAL  COPYRIGHT. 

(Prepared  for  the  Conference  of  the  "  Association  for  the  Reform  and  Codifica- 
tion of  the  Law  of  Nations,"  held  at  Antwerp,  August  28,  1877.) 

The  chief  moment  of  the  question  of  an  international 
law  of  copyright  lies  in  the  reciprocal  relations  of  the 
book  trade  in  Germany,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United 
States,  as  established  by  law,  custom,  or  courtesy.  This 
section  of  the  report  will  be  devoted  exclusively  to  those 
countries  ;  and  will  comprise  :  — 

I.  The  law  of  copyright  in  each  country  for  the  pro- 
tection of  its  native  authors. 

II.  The  laws  or  conventions  of  each  country  concern- 
ing foreign  authors,  as  to  reprint  or  original  publication. 

III.  A  digest  of  the  principles  and  rules  of  copyright 
common  to  the  three  countries. 

IV.  Suggestions  for  concerted  legislation  for  bringing 
the  law  of  copyright  in  the  three  countries  into  accord, 
for  the  rights  of  authors  and  the  interests  of  literature. 

I.  Tlie  protection  of  native  authors. 

A.  Germany.  The  law  of  copyright  in  Germany  has 
been  greatly  simplified  by  the  acts  of  the  Imperial  Par- 
liament codifying  the  independent  laws  and  the  mutual 
conventions  of  the  several  German  states  on  copyright, 
as  these  stood  prior  to  1871.  The  constitution  of  the 
German  empire  (art.  IV.  §  6)  provides  for  the  protection 
of  intellectual  property  by  the  empire,  through  appro- 
priate legislation.     This  protection  is  assured  equally  to 


152  ON  INTERNATIONAL   COPYRIGHT. 

authors  in  all  parts  of  Germany,  by  the  copyright  hiw  of 
the  North  German  Union  of  June  11,  1870.  This  hiw, 
which  covers  literary  works,  artistic  designs,  musical  and 
dramatic  compositions,  is  now  incorporated  into  the  stat- 
ute book  of  the  empire,  and  has  the  same  force  in  Hesse, 
Baden,  Wiirtemberg,  Bavaria,  and  Elsass-Lothriiigen,  as 
in  the  states  of  the  former  North  German  Union.  The 
Act  of  Parliament  of  January  11,  1876,  having  more 
special  reference  to  works  of  art,  photograplis,  patterns 
and  models,  completes  the  legislation  of  the  German  em- 
pire for  the  protection  of  original  intellectual  productions 
within  its  bounds.  The  principal  points  established  by 
this  legislation  are  the  following  :  — 

(1.)  The  original  work  of  an  author,  ai-tist,  or  com- 
poser, is  entitled  to  legal  protection,  and  this  upon  the 
ground  that  it  is  an  original  or  independent  product  of 
intellectual  labor.  It  has  been  much  disputed  among 
German  jurists  whether  the  right  of  an  author  in  his 
work  is  of  the  nature  of  an  Eigentimm  ;  that  is,  a  per- 
sonal, exclusive,  and  indefeasible  right  in  the  substance 
of  the  thing  itself,  —  or  is  simply  a  Vermd'getisrecht,  — 
which  may  be  created  or  at  least  determined  by  law,  in 
which  the  personality  of  the  author  is  a  less  vital  element 
than  the  mere  legal  notion  of  property.  An  intellectual 
Eigenthum  inheres  in  one,  a  material  Vermogen  belongs 
to  him.  However,  the  distinction  is  more  one  of  words 
tlian  of  fact.  Singularly  enough  the  phraseology  of  the 
German  constitution  recognizes  the  author's  right  in  the 
creations  of  his  intellect  as  an  Eigenthum^  while  the  Acts 
of  Parliament  for  the  protection  of  this  right  treat  it 
rather  as  a  Vermogen.  Among  the  prerogatives  of  the 
imperial  government  the  constitution  specifies  (art.  IV. 
§  6),  "  der  Schutz  des  geistigen  Eigenthvma"  —  the  pro- 
tection of  intellectual  Eigenthum.  But  the  Act  of  June 
11,  1870  is  entitled,  "  Gesetz  betreffend  das  Urheberrecht 


COPYRIGHT  IN  GERMANY.  153 

an  Schriftwerken,"  etc. ;  and  this  terra  Urheberrecht  — 
the  right  of  the  creator,  originator,  author  —  is  substi- 
tuted for  Eigejithum  through  the  entire  act.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  Act  of  Parliament  of  January  11,  1876. 
The  substitution  of  this  "  right  of  the  producer  "  for  the 
self-existent  intellectual  proprietorship  recognized  by  the 
constitution,  was  apparently  made  for  a  purpose ;  and  in 
an  action  for  violation  of  copyright,  no  doubt  the  courts 
would  follow  the  phraseology  of  the  laws  rather  than  that 
of  the  constitution. 

In  either  case,  however,  it  is  clearly  recognized  that 
the  author  has  a  right  of  property  in  his  work  as  his  own 
intellectual  labor.  The  property  does  not  lie  merely  in 
the  material  form  in  which  his  work  appears,  but  in  the 
thought  and  labor  which  that  form  embodies.  The  first 
article  of  the  law  of  June  11, 1870,  declares  that  the  right 
to  multiply  a  manuscript  by  mechanical  means  belongs 
exclusively  to  the  author  of  the  same.  And  the  law  pro- 
vides also,  in  principle,  that  the  right  of  the  author  passes 
over  to  his  heirs,  but  may  be  transferred  to  others  by 
contract  or  other  disposition. 

(2.)  Any  and  every  mechanical  reproduction  of  a 
work,  in  whole  or  in  part,  —  even  by  writing  in  lieu  of 
printing,  —  without  consent  of  the  author,  is  forbidden. 
The  author  alone  has  the  right  to  give  his  work  to  the 
public,  and  by  the  same  right  can  withhold,  alter,  con- 
trol it. 

(3.)  Under  certain  limitations  as  to  time,  notification, 
etc.,  the  author  of  an  original  work,  or  the  translator  of 
a  work  from  a  dead  language  into  a  living  tongue,  is 
protected  against  the  publication  of  a  translation  of  his 
work,  in  the  same  manner  as  if  this  were  a  reprint  of  the 
work  itself. 

(4.)  The  protection  of  the  author  against  the  reprint- 
ing of  his  work  without  his  consent  is  guaranteed  during 


154  ON  INTERNATIONAL   COPYRIGnT. 

his  lifetime  and  for  thirty  years  after  his  death.  The 
prohibition  of  the  publication  of  translations  holds  good 
for  five  years  after  the  first  appearance  of  the  original 
work,  or  of  a  translation  sanctioned  by  the  author  him- 
self. 

These  principles,  covering  the  right  of  property  in  in- 
tellectual productions,  the  protection  of  that  right  against 
infringement,  and  the  duration  of  copyright,  fairly  rep- 
resent the  German  law,  so  far  as  this  concerns  native  au- 
thors. The  details  must  be  looked  for  in  the  Acts  of 
Parliament  already  cited.^ 

B.  Great  Britain. 

(1.)  The  Act  of  Parliament  of  July  1,  1842,  expressly 
declares  "  that  all  copyright  shall  be  deemed  personal 
property,  and  shall  be  transmissible  by  bequest,  or,  in 
case  of  intestacy,  shall  be  subject  to  the  same  law  of  dis- 
tribution as  other  personal  property,  and  in  Scotland 
shall  be  deemed  to  be  personal  and  movable  estate." 
(6  and  6  Vict.  c.  45,  §  25.)  Here  the  fact  of  property 
in  the  original  creations  of  intellect  is  fully  recognized, 
and  the  legal  denomination  of  such  propertj'  is  distinctly 
fixed.  The  English  law  of  copyright  is  uniform  through- 
out the  "  British  Dominions,"  which  term  includes  "  all 
parts  of  the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land, the  islands  of  Jersey  and  Guernsey,  all  parts  of  the 
East  and  West  Indies,  and  all  tiie  colonies,  settlements, 
and  possessions  of  the  crown  which  now  are  or  hereafter 
may  be  acquired." 

(2.)  The  law  of  Great  Britain,  like  that  of  Germany, 

*  See  O.  Dambach,  Die  Gesetzgehung  des  norddeutschen  Bundes, 
betreffend  das  Urheberrecht  an  Schriftwerhen,  Ahh'ddungen,  etc.    1871. 

W.  Endcmann,  Das  Gesetz  betreffend  das  Urheberrecht  an  Schri/l- 
tcerken,  etc.     1871. 

R.  Klostermann,  Das  Urheberrecht  an  Schrift-und  Kunstwerken, 
etc.     1876. 


COPYIilGHT  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN.  155 

makes  the  copyright  tover  every  part  or  division  of  a 
work  equally  with  the  work  as  a  whole ;  and  treats  the 
multiplication  in  any  form  for  circulation  of  copies  of  any 
work,  in  whole  or  in  part,  without  the  consent  of  the 
holder  of  the  copyright,  as  an  infringement  of  said  right. 

(3.)  The  English  law  requires  that  "  the  proprietor- 
ship in  the  copyright  of  books,  and  assignments  thereof, 
and  in  dramatic  and  musical  pieces,  whether  in  manu- 
script or  otherwise,  and  licenses  affecting  such  copyright, 
shall  be  registered  in  an  official  book  kept  for  this  pur- 
pose at  the  hall  of  the  stationers'  company." 

(4.)  The  English  law  provides  that  the  copyright  in  a 
book  shall  endure  for  a  period  of  not  less  than  forty-two 
years  ;  that  is  to  say,  for  the  natural  life  of  the  author 
and  for  a  further  time  of  seven  years  from  the  date  of 
his  death ;  "  provided  always,  that  if  the  said  term  of 
seven  years  shall  expire  before  the  end  of  forty-two  years 
from  the  first  publication  of  such  book,  the  copyright 
shall  in  that  case  endure  for  such  period  of  forty-two 
years." 

(5.)  The  English  law  has  a  peculiar  provision  for  com- 
pulsory publication.  The  statutes  do  not  place  copyright 
upon  abstract  grounds  of  personal  and  indefeasible  right 
in  the  author.  Before  the  statute  of  Queen  Anne  it  was 
held  at  common  law  that  an  author  had  a  right  of  prop- 
erty in  his  works  in  perpetuity  ;  but  the  statutes  relating 
to  copyright  were  enacted  avowedly  with  a  view  "  to  af- 
ford greater  encouragement  to  the  production  of  literary 
works  of  lasting  benefit  to  the  world."  (See  5  and  6 
Vict.  c.  45,  §  1,  and  the  titles  of  preceding  acts  cited 
therein.)  Hence  the  statutes  of  copyright,  while  osten- 
sibly conferring  upon  the  author  a  privilege  by  way  of  a 
motive  to  labor  for  the  public  benefit,  practically  curtailed 
a  right  by  virtue  of  which  he  had  been  master  of  his 
own  time,  talents,  and  productions. 


156  ON  INTERNATIONAL   COPYRIGHT. 

In  tliis  view  of  securing  to  the  world  the  benefit  of  in- 
tellectual labor,  the  law  of  1842  enacts  "  that  it  shall  be 
lawful  for  the  judicial  committee  of  her  majesty's  privy- 
council,  on  complaint  made  to  them  that  the  proprietor 
of  the  copyright  in  any  book,  after  the  death  of  its  au- 
thor, has  refused  to  republish  or  to  allow  the  republica- 
tion of  the  same,  and  that  by  reason  of  such  refusal  such 
book  may  be  withheld  from  the  public,  to  grant  a  license 
to  such  complainant  to  publish  such  book,  in  such  man- 
ner and  subject  to  such  conditions  as  they  may  think  fit, 
and  that  it  shall  be  lawful  for  such  complainant  to  pub- 
lish such  book  according  to  such  license."  (5  and  6  Vict, 
c.  45,  §  5.)  This  provision  is  obviously  liable  to  abuse. 
If,  for  example,  an  author  had  published  a  book  which 
his  heirs  were  willing  to  let  die  as  unworthy  of  his  name 
or  injurious  to  his  reputation  or  the  reputation  of  others, 
or  to  the  public  morals,  or  because  of  a  change  in  the 
autlior's  views  and  beliefs,  —  as  from  the  Protestant  to 
the  Roman  Catholic  faith  and  vice  versa,  —  then  some 
huckstering  publisher,  trading  upon  the  supposed  popu- 
larity of  the  book,  might  obtain  a  license  to  violate  the 
most  sacred  feelings  of  a  family,  and  the  presumable 
wishes  of  the  deceased  author  himself.  The  very  excel- 
lence of  the  purpose  of  this  provision  calls  for  uncommon 
care  in  its  application. 

(0.)  The  English  law  guards  rigorously  against  the 
importation  into  the  British  dominions  of  foreign  re- 
prints, not  authorized  by  the  holder  of  the  copyrigiit,  of 
any  work  first  published  under  copyright  in  any  part  of 
the  British  dominions. 

These  several  specifications  contain  what  is  most  im- 
portant to  the  purpose  of  this  report,  in  the  English  law 
of  copyright  in  behalf  of  native  authors. 

C.  The  United  States.  The  provisions  of  the  law 
of  coj)yright  in  the  United  States  may  be  concisely 
stated  as  follows :  — 


COPYRIGHT  IN  THE   UNITED  STATES.  157 

(1.)  The  constitution  of  the  United  States  declares 
(art.  I.  sec.  8,  §  8)  that  the  "  Congress  shall  have  power 
to  promote  the  progress  of  science  and  useful  arts,  by  se- 
curing, for  limited  times,  to  authors  and  inventors  the 
exclusive  right  to  their  respective  writings  and  discover- 
ies." Here  the  English  notion  of  benefit  to  mankind  is 
avowedly  put  forward  as  a  motive  for  securing  the  rights 
of  authors.  Before  the  Revolution,  an  American  author 
in  either  of  the  colonies  would  have  had  his  rights  under 
the  common  law  as  regulated  and  limited  by  the  statutes 
of  Parliament. 

Under  the  confederation  particular  states  enacted  laws 
of  copyright.  Connecticut  and  Virginia  by  preamble  de- 
clared that  "  it  is  perfectly  agreeable  to  the  principles  of 
natural  justice  and  equity  that  every  author  should  be 
secured  in  receiving  the  profits  that  may  arise  from  the 
sale  of  his  works  ; "  and  INIassachusetts  went  so  far  as  to 
say  that  such  security  to  authors  of  the  fruits  of  their 
study  and  industry  "  is  one  of  the  natural  rights  of  all 
men,  there  being  no  property  more  peculiarly  a  man's 
own  than  that  which  is  produced  by  the  labor  of  his 
mind." 

The  law  of  the  United  States,  as  approved  July  8, 
1870,  under  the  revision  of  the  statutes,  does  not  define 
the  nature  of  the  right  secured  to  authors,  other  than 
that  it  makes  copyright  an  assignable  property,  and  holds 
a  manuscript  to  be  inviolable.  It  secures  to  the  author, 
his  executors,  administrators,  or  assigns,  the  sole  liberty 
of  printing,  reprinting,  publishing  his  works. 

(2.)  The  copyright  is  valid  for  the  term  of  twenty- 
eight  years,  with  the  privilege  of  renewal  for  the  further 
term  of  fourteen  years.  These  two  terms  are  together 
equal  to  the  English  minimum  of  forty-two  years. 

II.  Laws  or  conventions  concerning  foreign  authors, 
as  to  reprinting  or  original  publication. 


158  ON  INTERNATIONAL  COPYRIGHT. 

A.   GERMAlfY. 

(1.)  Before  the  constitution  of  the  German  empire, 
separate  states  of  Germany  had  entered  into  conventions 
with  foreign  states  for  the  reciprocal  protection  of  the 
rights  of  authors.  Such  a  convention  was  concluded  be- 
tween Prussia  and  Great  Britain  May  13,  1816,  and  be- 
tween Prussia  and  France  August  2,  1862 ;  several  of 
the  minor  states  of  Germany  shared  in  the  engagements 
of  these  treaties.  The  general  principle  of  these  conven- 
tions is  that  of  exact  reciprocity.  For  example :  an  Eng- 
lish author  shall  be  admitted  to  the  same  protection  in 
Germany  which  the  laws  secure  to  a  German  author,  it 
being  stipulated  that  a  German  author  shall  in  turn  re- 
ceive in  Eugland  the  same  protection  with  a  British  sub- 
ject. The  single  qualification  is,  that  the  foreign  author 
shall  not  enjoy  a  longer  term  of  copyright  than  is  ac- 
corded to  him  in  his  native  country.  Thus  the  copyright 
of  an  English  book  would  be  respected  in  Germany  for 
the  term  of  seven  yeai's  after  the  death  of  the  author,  as 
fixed  by  English  law,  and  not  for  thirty  years  after  his 
decease,  as  fixed  by  German  law. 

(2.)  Since  the  constitution  of  the  empire,  the  guaran- 
tee of  copyright  to  foreigners  has  been  lifted  out  of  the 
sphere  of  literary  conventions  into  that  of  parliamentary 
legislation.  The  conventions  of  the  German  states  with 
France  were  dissolved  by  the  war  of  1870,  but  by  the 
treaty  of  peace  of  May  10,  1871  (art.  11),  and  the  sup- 
plementary convention  of  December  11,  1871  (art.  18), 
an  international  copyright  was  arranged  between  the 
German  empire  and  France  upon  the  basis  of  the  former 
conventions. 

Tiie  statute  of  June  11,  1870  closes  with  the  general 
provision  (§  61)  that  the  works  of  a  foreign  author  shall 
be  under  tiie  protection  of  this  law  of  copyright  if  issued 
by  a  publisher  who  has  his  business  establishment  within 


COPYRIGHT  TO  FOREIGNERS.  159 

the  bounds  of  the  German  empire.  This  article,  while 
it  secures  to  the  foreign  author  a  reasonable  protection, 
makes  the  profits  of  the  manufacture  and  publication  of 
his  works  inure  to  the  benefit  of  German  industry.  The 
protection  guaranteed  to  foreign  authors  through  Ger- 
man publishers  is  absolute  and  universal,  without  respect 
to  treaties  of  reciprocity. 

B.  Great  Britain. 

(1.)  During  the  present  reign  the  Parliament  of  Great 
Britain  has  ratified  conventions  with  several  countries  for 
an  international  copyright  (e.  g.  with  Prussia  in  1848, 
and  with  France  in  1852)  ;  and  by  a  declaration  of  prin- 
ciples in  the  form  of  an  act,  by  which  the  way  is  opened 
for  similar  conventions  with  all  existing  states. 

The  Act  of  July  31,  1838  (1  and  2  Vict.  c.  59),  en- 
titled "  An  act  for  securing  to  authors,  in  certain  cases, 
the  benefit  of  international  copyright,"  secured  "  protec- 
tion within  her  majesty's  dominions  to  the  authors  of 
books  first  published  in  foreign  countries,  and  their  as- 
signs, in  cases  where  protection  shall  be  afforded  in  such 
foreign  countries  to  the  authors  of  books  first  published 
in  her  majesty's  dominions,  and  their  assigns."  The 
term  for  such  copyright  was  to  be  fixed  by  an  order  in 
council,  but  must  not  exceed  the  term  for  which  British 
authors  are  secured  by  law.  This  act  was  repealed  by 
the  Act  of  May  10,  1844  (7  and  8  Vict.  c.  12),  and  the 
authorization  of  copyright  to  works  first  published  in  for- 
eign countries  was  renewed,  with  a  more  extended  ap- 
plication to  works  of  art,  musical  and  dramatical  composi- 
tions, etc.  By  this  act  it  was  provided,  "  That  no  such 
order  in  council  shall  have  any  effect  unless  it  shall  be 
therein  stated,  as  the  ground  for  issuing  the  same,  that 
due  protection  has  been  secured  by  the  foreign  power  so 
named  in  such  order  in  council,  for  the  benefit  of  parties 
interested  in  works  first  published  in  the  dominions  of 
her  majesty  similar  to  those  compromised  in  such  order." 


160  ON  INTERNATIONAL   COPYRIGHT. 

The  Act  of  May  28,  1852  (15  Vict.  c.  12),  «  to  enable 
her  majesty  to  carry  into  effect  a  convention  with  France 
on  the  subject  of  copyright,"  protects  the  foreign  author 
for  a  term  of  five  years  against  unauthorized  translations. 

This  legislation  of  Great  Britain  fixes  the  principle 
that  wherever  a  convention  of  literary  reciprocit}'  exists 
between  Great  Britain  and  a  foreign  power,  the  subject 
of  such  power,  or  the  author  who  first  publishes  his  works 
within  the  dominion  of  such  power,  shall  enjoy  in  Great 
Britain  the  privilege  of  copyright  "  for  a  period  equal  to 
the  terra  of  copyright  which  authors,  inventors,  design- 
ers, engravers,  and  makers  of  the  like  works  respectively 
first  published  in  the  United  Kingdom  are  by  law  enti- 
tled to." 

(2.)  Aside  from  conventions  and  legislation,  the  de- 
cision of  the  Court  of  Apj^eal  in  the  case  of  Low  v. 
Iloutledge  appears  to  settle  the  point,  that  an  alien  friend 
can  avail  himself  of  the  British  law  of  copyright,  by 
taking  up  his  residence  in  any  part  of  the  British  domin- 
ions for  a  brief  period  covering  the  actual  date  of  the 
publication  of  his  work  either  there  or  in  any  other  part 
of  the  British  dominions  ;  and  by  complying  with  certain 
formalities  as  to  registration,  etc.  The  legislative  and 
judicial  action  of  Great  Britain  for  the  past  forty  years 
has  greatly  favored  international  copyright. 

C.  The  United  States. 

(1.)  The  law  of  copyright  in  the  United  States  pro- 
tects the  author  equally  if  he  is  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States,  or  simply  "  resident  therein."  Hence  any  person 
of  foreign  birth,  without  being  naturalized,  may  obtain  a 
copyright  for  his  works  in  the  United  States,  in  the  same 
way  and  upon  the  same  terms  with  a  native  author,  pro- 
vided he  is  resident  in  the  country. 

(2.)  The  United  States  have  no  provision,  either  by 
convention  or  by  law,  for  securing  copyright  to  an  alien 
who  is  non-resident. 


SUMMARY  AND  SUGGESTIONS.  161 

• 

(3.)  By  the  courtesy  of  leading  American  publishers 
toward  each  other,  in  the  best  interest  of  the  book-trade, 
and  through  their  spontaneous  sense  of  what  is  just  and 
honorable  toward  authors,  any  foreign  author  of  repute 
is  enabled  to  make  in  advance  exclusive  arrangements 
with  an  American  publisher,  by  which  he  receives  the 
same  royalty  that  he  would  receive  if  he  were  a  citizen 
of  the  United  States.  Some  English  authors  have  even 
felt  that  this  law  of  courtesy  yielded  them  a  larger  re- 
turn than  they  should  have  had  under  an  international 
law  of  copyright. 

III.  Principles  and  rules  of  copyright  common  to  the 
three  countries  now  under  review. 

(1.)  Germany,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United  States 
agree  in  according  to  the  author  a  right  of  property  in 
his  works,  which,  for  a  specified  term,  is  exclusive  and  in- 
violable. 

(2.)  In  each  of  these  countries  this  right  endures  for 
not  less  than  thirty  years,  —  this  being  the  term  fixed  in 
Germany  for  the  continuance  of  the  copyright  in  a  book 
after  the  death  of  the  author,  —  an  event  which  might 
occur  in  the  very  year  of  publication.  In  Great  Britain 
the  copyright  in  a  book  can  in  no  case  become  void  within 
a  period  of  less  than  forty-two  years  ;  in  the  United 
States  it  may  be  extended  to  that  period,  by  renewal. 

(3.)  In  Germany  and  in  Great  Britain  very  fair  pro- 
visions exist  for  securing  a  copyright  to  alien  authors  :  in 
the  United  States  such  provisions  exist  by  law  for  aliens 
resident  in  the  country  ;  for  others  they  exist  only  by 
the  honor  and  courtesy  of  American  publishers. 

IV.  Suggestions  for  bringing  into  accord  the  laws  of 
copyright  in  Germany,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United 
States  for  the  mutual  advantage  8f  alien  authors. 

Since  in  each  of  these  countries  the  principle  of  copy- 
right is  established  by  legislation  and  by  judicial  deci- 
11 


162  ON  INTERNATIONAL  COPYRIGHT. 

sions,  it  would  be  superfluous  here  to  argue  the  right  of 
property  in  intellectual  labor.  There  is  indeed  a  school 
of  political  economists  who  oppose  copyright  as  a  form 
of  monopoly,  prejudicial  to  the  interests  of  society  as  a 
whole.  An  American  writer  of  this  school  goes  so  far  as 
to  say,  "  the  word  property/  is  only  applicable  to  material 
substances  ;  "  though  he  contradicts  tliis  materialistic  no- 
tion of  property  when  he  adds,  "  a  person's  ideas  or 
thoughts  are  his  intellectual  property  only  so  long  as 
they  remain  unuttered  and  unknown  to  others."  But 
the  property  which  he  calls  *'  intellectual "  does  not  lie 
in  the  intellect,  which  is  the  creative  power,  but  in  the 
concrete  product  of  intellectual  power  and  activity  —  em- 
bodied thovgJit.  Hence  the  right  of  property  in  intellect- 
ual products  cannot  be  extinguished  by  the  self-same  act 
which  creates  the  property  ;  namely,  the  clothing  sucli 
products  with  an  outward  form,  whether  the  ideas  be 
embodied  in  a  book  or  in  a  machine  of  iron. 

Dr.  Noah  Webster  has  defined  this  right  with  his  ac- 
customed clearness.  "  The  labor  of  inventing,  making, 
or  producing  anything  constitutes  one  of  the  highest  and 
most  indefeasible  titles  to  property.  No  right  or  title  to 
a  thing  can  be  so  perfect  as  that  which  is  created  by  a 
man's  own  labor  and  invention.  The  exclusive  right  of 
a  man  to  his  literary  productions,  and  to  the  use  of  them 
for  his  own  profit,  is  entire  and  perfect,  since  the  facul- 
ties employed  and  labor  bestowed  are  entirely  and  per- 
fectly his  own."  There  is  no  analogy  whatever  between 
copyright  and  a  protective  tariff.  Free  trade,  while  it 
enables  the  consumer  to  choose  in  the  markets  of  the 
world  the  cheapest  or  the  best,  at  the  same  time  secures 
to  the  producer  a  return  for  his  labor  in  proportion  to 
the  extent  of  the  market.  Hence  free  trade  stimulates 
production  by  opening  to  the  producer  the  widest  possi- 
ble area  for  the  sale  of  his  products,  and  enabling  him  by 


RIGHT  OF  PROPERTY  IN  DRAIN   WORK.        163 

large  sales  at  small  profits  to  realize  more  than  by  the 
limited  sales  under  the  factitious  prices  of  a  protective 
tariff.  Thus  the  community  is  benefited  with  a  corre- 
sponding benefit  to  the  producer.  Moreover,  under  the 
freest  laws  of  trade  trade-marks  are  respected  and  pro- 
tected by  law.  But  free  trade  in  books  would  interdict 
production ;  since  the  abolition  of  copyright  would  take 
away  that  powerful  incentive  to  production  which  is 
given  in  the  prospect  of  a  fair  return  for  the  outlay  of 
time  and  labor.  However  cheaply  the  manufacturer  of 
material  products  may  put  his  goods  upon  the  market,  he 
still  reserves  to  himself  a  margin  of  profit ;  and  then  the 
fi*eer  the  sales  the  better  he  is  remunerated.  If,  through 
excess  of  competition  or  of  production,  the  selling  price 
falls  below  the  cost,  he  stops  manufacturing  and  waits 
for  better  times.  But  if  copyright  is  denied,  the  mind, 
which  is  the  true  manufacturer,  receives  no  return.  The 
publisher,  or  rival  publishers,  may  increase  their  receipts 
by  wide,  cheap  sales  in  an  open  market.  But  there  re- 
mains no  pecuniary  incentive  to  authorship,  and  by  and 
by  the  whole  community  must  suffer  through  the  wrong 
done  to  authors.  This  method  of  multiplying  cheap 
books  will  end  in  few  books  being  made. 

To  abolish  copyright  would  be  to  deny  to  the  highest 
and  most  beneficial  form  of  labor,  the  labor  of  the  brain, 
that  which  is  conceded  as  a  natural  right  to  the  common- 
est labor  of  the  hand,  —  a  share  in  the  profits  of  its  own 
time  and  toil.  But  the  principle  of  copyright,  founded 
in  natural  justice,  is  not  likely  to  be  set  aside  by  the  cry 
of  monopoly.  And  besides,  the  sense  of  justice  is  in  civ- 
ilized communities  too  far  advanced  to  permit  a  man  to 
be  deprived  of  any  natural  right  simply  because  he  is  a 
foreigner.  The  laws,  conventions,  and  legal  decisions 
cited  above  show  that  in  neither  of  the  three  countries 
under  consideration  is  there  any  prejudice  against  reran- 


16-1  OX  INTERNATIONAL   COPYRIGHT. 

nerating  an  author  of  foreign  birth  ;  since  in  one  form  or 
another  an  alien  friend  resident  in  Germany,  Great  Brit- 
ain, or  the  United  States,  can  secure  for  his  works  first 
publislied  within  the  country  the  same  protection  of 
copyright  which  is  accorded  to  a  native  author.  Hence 
a  formal  declaration  of  international  copyright  between 
these  three  countries  is  reduced  to  a  question  of  expe- 
diencj'.  The  chief  hindrances  to  such  an  arrangement 
have  arisen  in  the  United  States ;  and,  setting  aside  the 
limited  school  of  political  economists  above  referred  to, 
the  objections  raised  to  an  international  copyright  are  in 
part  selfish,  in  part  sentimental.  For  many  years  there 
has  existed  in  the  United  States  an  "  International  Copy- 
right Association,"  representing  the  most  eminent  names 
in  American  literature ;  and  it  is  believed  that  American 
authors,  with  the  cosmopolitan  spirit  that  should  mark 
the  guild  of  letters,  almost  without  exception  desire  that 
the  works  of  foreign  authors  should  enjoy  in  the  United 
States  the  same  privileges  and  protection  which  are  ac- 
corded to  their  own.  Partlj"^  by  the  instrumentality  of 
this  association,  and  partly  through  other  agencies,  the 
subject  of  international  copyright  has  been  five  times  in- 
troduced into  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  in  the 
last  forty  years,  though  without  any  practical  I'esult. 
For  some  time  past  the  association  has  suspended  its 
activity,  and  its  secretary  writes  in  a  tone  of  discourage- 
ment :  "  The  present  phase  of  the  subject  in  this  coun- 
try is,  as  it  was  always,  and  will  be :  authors  in  favor  of 
the  law  ;  publishers  (almost  universally)  opposed  to  it ; 
the  public  indifferent."  So  far  as  publishers  are  con- 
cerned this  statement  appears  too  sweeping.  The  com- 
prehensive article  by  Mr.  C.  E.  Appleton,  in  the  "  Fort- 
nightly Review "  for  February,  1877,  on  "  American 
Efforts  after  International  Copyright "  gives  several  in- 
stances of  the  activity  of  leading  publishers  in  the  United 


OPPOSITION  TO  INTERNATIONAL  COPYRIGHT.    165 

States  in  behalf  of  such  a  measure.  The  leading  oppo- 
nents of  international  copyright,  as  Mr.  Appleton  clearly 
shows,  are :  — 

(1.)  Tlie  smaller  publishers  and  the  booksellers  who 
are  not  publishers.  These  fancy  that  an  international 
copyright  would  play  into  the  hands  of  a  few  leading 
firms  having  special  facilities  of  communication  with  the 
foreign  market,  and  would  secure  to  them  a  monopoly  in 
the  works  of  foreign  authors.  The  case  of  such  objectors 
is  not  made  out.  But  if  it  were,  the  plea  is  one  of  self- 
interest  based  upon  injustice.  Why  should  the  reading 
public  support  the  bookseller  by  cheating  the  author  ? 
As  the  general  public  would  not,  for  the  sake  of  cheap- 
ness, knowingly  encourage  an  importer  in  defrauding  the 
revenue,  neither  would  they  knowingly  encourage  a  pub- 
lisher in  defrauding  an  author.  They  require  simply  to 
understand  the  case  in  order  to  right  it. 

(2.)  But  here  comes  in  the  second  class  of  objectors, 
who  argue  that  an  international  copyright  would  restrict 
the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  and  so  far  prejudice  the  well- 
being  of  mankind.  But  this  objection,  if  of  any  force, 
lies  equally  against  all  copyright,  and  not  merely  against 
the  extension  of  copyright  to  foreign  authors.  Now,  it 
has  been  shown  above  that  to  abolish  copyright  would  be 
to  restrict  production,  and  consequently  to  deprive  soci- 
ety of  many  of  the  best  fruits  of  mental  labor.  In  every 
other  sort  of  manufacture  the  cost  of  production  is  cov- 
ered in  the  price  of  the  article.  The  producer,  so  to 
speak,  is  represented  in  and  recompensed  by,  the  thing 
produced.  But  in  the  book,  as  material,  it  is  the  pub- 
lisher and  not  the  author  who  is  so  represented  and  rec- 
ompensed. The  author's  right  calls  for  a  separate  and 
distinct  recognition.  No  man  who  would  not  steal  a 
book  from  the  shelves  of  a  library  or  a  publisher  would 
knowingly  rob  the  author  of  the  product  of  his  labor. 


16G  ON  INTERNATIONAL   COPYRIGHT. 

The  small    percentage  allowed  to  authors  the  reading 
public  would  not  grudge  in  the  cost  of  books. 

Moreover,  a  publisher  whose  editions  were  covered  by 
copyright  would  have  an  inducement  to  extend  his  sales 
by  various  and  cheap  editions,  so  that  in  the  end  the  dif- 
fusion of  knowledge  and  the  facility  of  acquiring  knowl- 
edge would  be  greatly  increased  by  the  proper  nurture 
of  authorship.  And  in  no  event  can  philanthropy  to  the 
general  be  rooted  in  injustice  to  the  individual.  Here, 
as  befoi'e,  to  understand  the  case  is  to  right  it.  Where 
governments  would  lead  in  such  an  enlightened  step,  pub- 
lic sentiment  would  assuredly  follow. 

Since  Germany,  Great  Britain,  and  the  United  States 
are  so  far  agreed  in  the  fundamental  principles  of  copy- 
right, a  very  simple  act  by  the  Parliament  of  each  coun- 
try, declaring  that  all  rights  of  property  in  original  works 
secured  hy  law  to  its  own  citizens  shall  be  in  like  mariner 
secured  to  the  citizens  of  every  other  country  the  laws  of 
which  secure  reciprocal  rights  to  alien  authors^  would 
substantially  settle  the  whole  question.  Indeed,  since 
Germany  and  Great  Britain  are  virtually  upon  this 
ground,  such  an  act  by  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  Avould  determine  a  copyright  in  common  between 
these  Powers.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  a  judicious 
presentation  of  the  case  would  secure  the  recommenda- 
tion of  such  a  measure  to  Congress  by  the  President  in 
his  annual  message.  The  settlement  of  the  question  by 
such  a  declarative  act  of  the  several  governments,  upon 
the  sole  condition  of  reciprocity,  would  be  fair  and  final. 
Yet,  in  order  to  conciliate  jealous  and  rival  interests,  it 
might  be  found  expedient  at  the  first  to  concede  the 
point  established  in  German  law,  and  contended  for  by 
some  American  publishers,  that  as  a  condition  of  copy- 
right to  a  foreign  author  his  book  must  be  printed  in  the 
country  granting  such  copyright.     Also,  as  a  means  of 


A  SIMPLE  SOLUTION  OF  THE  PROBLEM.       167 

encouraging  competition  and  thereby  promoting  cheap- 
ness, and  extent  of  circulation,  it  might  be  open  to  any 
one  to  reprint  a  foreign  work,  upon  binding  himself  to 
pay  the  author  ten  per  cent,  upon  the  retail  price  of  all 
copies  of  such  reprint  that  shall  be  sold.  The  duration 
of  copyright  to  foreigners  should  be  fixed  at  the  same 
time  for  all  countries.  But  the  details  of  the  law  could 
be  soon  adjusted,  if  there  were  a  concerted  movement  to 
press  the  law  itself.  To  give  expression  to  the  ripened 
feeling  on  this  subject,  this  association  might  appropri- 
ately memorialize  the  several  governments  to  appoint 
each  an  equal  number  of  members  of  a  joint  commission 
to  determine  and  report  a  reciprocal  law  of  international 
copyright,  said  law  to  take  effect  directly  upon  being 
enacted  by  each  of  the  consulting  Powers. 


VII. 
THE  RIGHT  OF  WAR  INDEMNITY. 

(Remarks  at  the  Conference  of  the  "  Association  for  the  Reform  and  Codifi- 
cation of  the  Law  of  Nations,"  held  at  Frankfort  on  the  Main,  August  20th, 
3878.) 

The  author  proposed  the  following  Resolution  :  — 
Resolved,  That  a  committee  he  appointed  to  report  at 
the  next  annual  conference  upon  the  question^  By  what 
rights  and  U7ider  what  conditions,  may  art  aggressive  Power 
claim  a  war  indemnity  in  the  event  of  conquest?  And  he 
sustained  this  resolution  by  the  following  considerations. 

The  cost  of  modern  warfare  has  given  rise  to  enormous 
exactions  by  the  conquering  Power,  under  the  name  of 
Indemnity.  In  justification  of  these  exactions  it  is  al- 
leged, (1)  That  the  right  of  the  conqueror  to  subsist  his 
army  from  territory  actually  conquered,  implies  the  right 
to  reimburse  himself  for  all  the  expenses  of  the  war,  by 
levying  a  contribution  from  the  nation  which  has  surren- 
dered to  his  arms ;  (2)  That  by  crippling  the  resources 
of  the  vanquished  nation,  and  causing  it  to  feel  as  severely 
as  possible  the  costs  and  penalties  of  war,  the  conqueror 
secures  a  guarantee  of  peace  which  is  better  than  the 
pledges  of  a  treaty. 

These  pleas  have  more  foundation  in  usage  than  in 
principle  or  right.  They  make  no  account  of  the  causes 
or  the  motives  of  war ;  no  discrimination  between  just 
and  unjust  wars,  —  wars  of  justifiable  invasion  or  of  nee- 


VIEWS  OF  IlEFFTER  AND  BLUNTSCIILI.       169 

essary  defense,  and  wars  of  sheer  conquest  and  spoliation. 
But  mere  usage  can  no  longer  be  held  to  justify  in  war 
any  act  or  procedure  which  is  tainted  with  injustice.  In 
this  all  authorities  agree.  The  proverb  that  war  silences 
law  is  reversed,  and  law  now  rules  war,  and  aims  to  sup- 
press it.  Says  Heffter :  "  The  property  of  a  nation  at  war 
lying  within  the  territory  of  the  enemy,  by  the  old  law 
of  nations,  was  subjected  like  other  booty  to  the  right  of 
appropriation  by  seizure.  But  this  position  the  modern 
law  of  nations  cannot  allow."  Modern  states  indeed  at- 
tempt to  reach  the  same  end  under  the  names  "  reprisal" 
and  "  confiscation  ; "  but  Heffter  does  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  "this  so-called  confiscation  in  fact  shields  common 
robbery."  ^  As  to  pecuniary  exactions  by  an  invading 
power  within  the  territory  of  the  enemy,  Bluntschli  says  :  ^ 
"  In  earlier  warfare,  the  exaction  of  contributions  in 
money  was  wont  to  be  justified  by  the  consideration  that 
by  paying  such  a  contribution  cities  and  communities 
were  redeemed  from  the  fear  of  pillage  or  disturbance. 
But  the  laws  of  civilized  warfare  no  longer  recognize  a 
right  of  loot  or  of  wanton  disturbance.  Hence  there  exists 
no  warrant  for  a  ransom  from  such  a  right  .  .  .  The 
sense  of  justice  in  the  Europe  of  to-day  can  no  longer  be 
reconciled  with  such  remains  of  an  old  barbarian  mode  of 
warfare." 

Now,  is  not  the  modern  claim  of  war  indemnity  a 
heritage  from  the  old  barbarian  right  of  conquest  and 
spoliation  ?  Where,  at  least,  in  the  law  of  nations,  shall 
we  find  a  justification  of  the  indiscriminate  levying  of  in- 
demnity by  a  conqueror,  in  face  of  the  humane  and  hon- 
orable restrictions  imposed  upon  war  in  recent  times  ? 

1  Dr.  August  Wilhelin  Heffter,  Das  Europdische  Volkerrecht  der 
Gegenwart,  b.  ii.  §  140. 

2  Dr.  J.  C.  Bluntschli,  Das  moderne  Volkerrecht  der  civUisirten 
Staaten,  b.  viii.  §  654. 


170  THE  RIGHT  OF  WAR  INDEMNITY. 

The  practice  alone  cannot  justify  the  act.  And  the  prin- 
ciple of  indemnity  being  allowed,  as  a  penalty  for  wan- 
tonly aggressive  war  and  a  restraint  upon  the  lust  of 
conquest,  what  shall  hinder  the  prospect  of  an  indemnifi- 
cation to  be  reckoned  by  milliards^  from  acting  as  an  in- 
centive to  war?  There  is  danger  that  the  materialism 
of  the  times  will  devise  a  substitute  for  wars  of  spoliation 
under  cover  of  indemnity,  and  that  war  shall  become  a 
commercial  speculation  on  the  part  of  greater  states  to 
maintain  their  armies  at  the  cost  of  their  weaker  neigh- 
bors. This  mercenary  use  of  war  was  pushed  to  an  ex- 
treme by  Napoleon.  Conquest  opened  the  door  to  cupid- 
ity, and  cupidity  incited  to  further  conquest.  The  ex- 
actions of  Napoleon  from  the  several  states  of  Italy,  from 
the  Netherlands,  from  Wiirtemberg,  Baden,  Swabia, 
Franconia,  Bavaria,  Saxony,  Prussia,  Austria,  Portugal, 
—  exactions  in  the  name  of  the  French  republic  and  of 
his  own  sovereignty,  —  in  the  twelve  years  from  1796  to 
1808,  reached  to  many  milliards  of  francs.  These  "  in- 
demnities "  read  in  history  like  the  ransoms  extorted  by 
a  chief  of  banditti.  "  Dearly,"  says  Calvo,  "  has  France 
expiated  these  abusive  exactions  "  (first  by  the  indemnity 
of  seven  hundred  million  francs  in  1815,  and  next  by  five 
milliards  in  1871).  "  One  can  understand  how  up  to  a 
certain  point  a  victorious  power  may  claim  to  indemnify 
itself  from  a  vanquished  foe  for  the  expenses  which  the 
war  has  brought,  at  least  when  that  Power  did  not  pro- 
voke the  war.  But  it  is  quite  another  thing  to  put  forth 
demands  out  of  all  proportion  to  any  reasonable  calcula- 
tion :  demands  fitted  rather  to  ruin  the  country  upon 
which  they  are  imposed,  and  to  prolong  the  evils  of  war 
after  the  actual  cessation  of  hostilities.  Is  there  not  here 
a  place  for  a  moderating  and  conciliatory  intervention  ? 
Why  should  not  such  a  liquidation  of  accounts  be  sub- 


GERMAN  AND  RUSSIAN  CLAIMS.  171 

mitted  to  a  disinterested,  equitable,  impartial  arbitra- 
tion ?"i 

The  conditions  of  indemnity  are  not  determined  by 
clear,  precise,  equitable  rules  of  international  law.  The 
committee  which  I  propose  may  bo  able  to  suggest  some 
feasible  solution  of  a  question,  which,  in  its  newer  aspects, 
is  either  ignored  by  writers  on  the  law  of  nations,  or 
is  treated  with  too  much  of  political  partisanship.  My 
resolution  is  limited  to  a  single  point  —  the  right  of  an 
aggressive  Power  to  indemnity  in  the  event  of  conquest. 
This  point  will  be  made  clear  by  a  recent  example.  In 
1870,  France  declared  war  against  Prussia,  and  the  war 
involved  the  whole  of  Germany.  Germany  being  victo- 
rious, exacted  from  France  an  enormous  indemnity.  But 
though  the  form  and  amount  of  the  indemnity  caused 
much  discussion,  I  am  not  aware  that  a  single  French 
publicist  protested  against  the  claim  of  indemnity,  it  be- 
ing conceded  that  the  French  emperor  had  declared  the 
war. 

In  1877,  Russia  made  war  on  Turkey.  Whatever  the 
offenses  of  Turkey,  she  had  given  no  special  provocation 
to  Russia  as  an  individual  power.  Yet  Russia  having 
conquered  Turkey  was  allowed  by  the  Congress  of  Berlin 
to  recompense  herself  with  a  large  accession  of  territory 
in  Asia,  including  a  coveted  port  which  Russia  had  not 
captured,  and  whose  inhabitants  protested  against  her 
sovereignty.  Russia  has  demanded  also  an  enormous  in- 
demnity in  money,  sufficient  to  cripple  the  resources  of 
Turkey  for  fifty  years  to  come.  This  demand  was  shoved 
aside  by  the  congress,  but  may  hereafter  be  made  a  pre- 
text for  war. 

One  sees  at  a  glance  an  important  difference  between 

I  M.  Charles  Calvo.  Le  Droit  Internationale.  T.  ii,  liv.  6,  §  910. 
Calvo  gives  important  statistics  of  indemnity  as  tempting  the  greed 
of  conquerors. 


172  THE  RIGHT  OF  WAR  INDEMNITY. 

the  cases  of  Germany  and  Russia.  If  an  aggressive 
Power  is  allowed  to  indemnify  itself  equally  with  a 
Power  which  had  repelled  and  conquered  its  invader, 
then  indemnity,  instead  of  being  a  restraint  upon  war, 
may  be  an  incentive  to  war.  Such  an  anomaly  cannot 
fairly  represent  the  law  of  nations.  If  it  does,  then  the 
law  calls  loudly  for  reform. 

As  a  further  argument  for  such  a  committee  as  I  pro- 
pose, I  would  suggest  the  following  theses  :  — 

1.  Wars  of  mere  conquest,  ambition,  or  revenge,  are  no 
longer  sanctioned  by  the  law  of  nations. 

2.  Aggressive  war  can  be  justified  only  in  the  follow- 
ing cases :  — 

(a.)  To  recover  territory  seized  and  appropriated  by 
an  enemy. 

(6.)  To  suppress  the  turbulence  of  a  neighbor  who  is 
constantly  disturbing  the  peace  of  the  frontiei-,  and  whom 
no  treaty  can  bind. 

(c.)  To  deliver  an  oppressed  people  or  race  invoking 
succor,  and  having  a  just  claim  for  such  intervention. 

3.  It  shall  not  be  permitted  to  convert  a  justifiable 
war  of  invasion  or  intervention  into  such  a  war  of  con- 
quest as  would  be  forbidden  ab  initio  by  the  law  of  na- 
tions, nor,  under  cover  of  indemnity,  to  reap  the  fruits  of 
unlawful  spoliation. 

4.  To  guard  against  cruel  and  crushing  exactions,  and 
the  cupidity  of  conquest,  whenever  the  indemnity  assessed 
by  the  conqueror  is  deemed  excessive  by  the  conquered 
party,  said  indemnity  should  be  submitted  to  the  arbitra- 
tion of  three  neutral  and  impartial  powers,  whose  award 
shall  be  final. 

Indemnity  as  now  exacted  is  extortion  by  force.  It 
is  a  claim  derived  from  conquest.  But,  as  Halleck  has 
pointed  out,  "  conquest  expresses,  not  a  rights  but  a  faet^ 
from  which  rights  are  derived.    'The  rights  of  conquest 


ARBITRATION  BACKED  BY  POWER.  173 

are  derived  from  force  alone.  They  begin  with  posses- 
sion, and  end  with  the  loss  of  possession."  ^  Rights  so 
capricious  in  their  origin  are  especially  liable  to  abuse  in 
their  application.  Now,  it  is  an  important  office  of  the 
law  of  nations  to  mitigate  the  evils  of  war,  to  restrain  its 
excesses,  and  to  reduce  the  occasions  for  recourse  to  arms. 
If  the  levying  of  indemnity  by  an  aggressive  power  has 
in  it  any  element  of  injustice  or  unreason,  the  exposure 
of  this  must  lead  to  its  abolition.  The  sentiment  of  jus- 
tice among  civilized  nations  is  quick  to  rally  around  any 
authority  which  is  competent  to  assert  the  right ;  and 
events  are  sometimes  quick  to  ratify  a  principle  of  right 
or  a  measure  of  reform.  Of  this  the  Congress  of  Berlin 
is  a  notable  example.  It  has  been  a  standing  objection 
to  schemes  of  arbitration  that  they  propose  an  impracti- 
cable tribunal  with  no  power  to  enforce  its  decisions.  In 
my  paper  "  Concerning  Treaties,"  submitted  to  this  asso- 
ciation at  Antwerp,  I  showed  that  to  obviate  this  objec- 
tion, "  treaties  which  pledge  their  signataries  to  media- 
tion or  to  concert  of  moral  action  should  be  held  inviola- 
ble ;  and  the  attempt  to  set  aside  such  a  treaty  by  any 
other  than  the  rational  and  moral  methods  therein  pre- 
scribed should  be  followed  by  a  threat  of  war  on  the 
part  of  the  other  signataries  against  the  offender."  Thus 
arbitration  would  be  backed  by  power. 

Now  the  Paris  treaty  of  1856  provides  for  mediation 
and  advises  arbitration ;  and  the  London  Convention  of 
1871  declared  that  "  it  is  an  essential  principle  of  the  law 
of  nations  that  no  power  can  release  itself  from  the  en- 
gagements of  a  treaty,  nor  modify  any  of  its  stipulations, 
save  with  the  assent  of  the  contracting  parties,  by  means 
of  an  amicable  understanding."  The  treaty  of  San  Stef- 
ano  would  have  annulled  the  treaty  of  Paris  without  the 
assent  of  the  contracting  parties ;  but  the  British  govern- 
^  Halleck's  International  Law,  chap,  xxxiii.  §  23. 


174  TUE  RIGHT  OF  WAR  INDEMNITY. 

ment  refused  to  take  part  in  a  congress  upon  the  Eastern 
Question  except  upon  the  basis  of  the  treaty  of  1856,  and 
showed  a  determination  to  maintain  the  faith  of  treaties 
by  force  of  arms.  This  tested  my  doctrine  of  "  arbitra- 
tion backed  by  power.''  To  that  act  we  owe  it  that  the 
Congress  of  Berlin  was  convened  "  conformably  to  the 
stipulations  of  the  treaty  of  Paris ;  "  and  that  treaty,  and 
the  treaty  of  London  of  March  13, 1871,  "  are  maintained 
in  all  such  of  their  provisions  as  are  not  abrogated  or 
modified  by  the  treaty  of  Berlin."  Thus  the  great  Pow- 
ers of  Europe  are  solemnly  pledged  to  the  continuity  of 
the  law  of  nations,  and  to  the  duty  of  an  amicable  con- 
sultation under  any  and  every  treaty  which  is  their  joint 
work,  and  requires  their  joint  sanction  to  modify  its  stip- 
ulations. The  Congress  of  Berlin  began  with  this  great 
triumph  of  international  law,  and  ended  with  this  great 
hope  for  future  peace  by  arbitration.  In  like  manner  we 
may  look  to  see  the  question  of  indemnity,  and  other 
vexed  questions  arising  out  of  war,  and  indeed  the  ques- 
tion of  war  itself,  determined  before  a  high  tribunal  of 
the  Powers,  whose  sword  is  sheathed  at  its  side. 


VIII. 
SHALL  ENGLAND  SIDE  WITH  RUSSIA. 

(A  letter  to  the  "Committee  of  the  Peace  Society,"  London,  December  22, 1876.) 

Honored  and  dear  Friends,  —  As  one  of  the 
"  Friends  "  to  whom  your  address  of  November  24,  1876, 
was  kindly  sent,  I  desire  to  express  my  cordial  approval 
of  that  able  and  timely  paper,  and  to  pledge  my  personal 
devotion  to  its  principles  and  aims.  Every  sentiment  of 
the  address,  and  even  every  word  of  its  clear  and  forcible 
utterances,  commends  itself  to  my  judgment  and  to  my 
moral  feelings.  Were  I  an  Englishman,  I  should  lose  no 
opportunity  for  echoing  and  enforcing  the  exhortation 
that  "  on  no  pretext  ought  this  Christian  nation  again  to 
enter  into  partnership  for  purposes  of  war  with  Moham- 
medan  fanaticism  ; "  that  "  never  again  should  English 
blood  and  treasure  be  poured  forth  to  uphold  the  most 
execrable  system  of  government  under  the  sun,"  —  "  to 
perpetuate  and  consolidate  the  Turkish  dominion  in  Eu- 
rope, and  to  rivet  the  yoke  of  Mohammedan  oppression 
on  the  necks  of  the  groaning  millions  of  the  Christian 
subjects  of  the  Porte." 

But  were  I  an  Englishman  I  should  also  go  farther, 
and  say  what  England  most  needs  to  utter,  and  Europe 
needs  to  hear.  I  should  say,  "  As  an  Englishman  I  hate 
oppression,  and  above  all,  tyranny  over  conscience  and 
thought.  I  hate  this  because  it  is  oppression,  and  there- 
fore hate  it  under  every  name  and  form  —  Mohammedan 
or  Christian,  Turk,  Servian,   or  Russian.     I   denounce 


176         SHALL  ENGLAND  SIDE   WITH  RUSSIA. 

Turkey  for  her  breach  of  faith,  her  intolerance  and 
cruelty  ;  and  for  the  same  reasons  I  denounce  Russia 
also ;  and  I  refuse  to  be  the  ally  of  either  in  a  war, 
which,  whoever  may  triumph,  can  end  only  in  prolonging 
the  rule  of  bigotry  and  absolutism.  Turkey  and  Russia 
were  both  signataries  to  the  treaty  of  Paris  of  1856  ; 
they  both  are  treating  its  provisions  with  contempt  and 
defiance ;  and  therefore,  in  the  interest  of  peace,  honor, 
and  humanity,  England  should  exercise  her  prerogative 
for  the  rebuke  and  restraint  of  both."  The  statesman 
who  should  have  the  breadth  and  courage  to  take  this 
position  would  draw  around  him  the  fusing  elements  of 
popular  feeling,  would  shape  these  into  one  solid  national 
sentiment,  and  lead  a  new  and  nobler  departure  for  the 
cause  of  peace  and  humanity.  It  is  because  I  recognize 
in  your  honored  secretary  the  qualities  for  such  a  leader- 
ship, and  in  your  own  body  the  moral  force  to  win  such 
a  position  and  hold  it,  that  I  venture  to  express  my  sur- 
prise and  regret  at  finding  in  your  address  rebuke  and 
condemnation  for  but  one  of  the  actual  or  intending  bel- 
ligerents in  the  East,  and  my  hope  that  the  Peace  Society 
will  yet  seize  this  great  opportunity  for  rising  above  the 
passing  questions  of  English  policy,  and  proclaiming  the 
principles  that  England  should  assert  and  maintain  for 
the  peace  and  order  of  Europe. 

If  the  position  of  England  on  the  Eastern  Question 
were  merely  a  matter  of  English  policy,  of  course  I,  as  a 
stranger,  would  not  presume  to  meddle  with  it.  But  I 
have  no  apology  to  offer  for  speaking  on  behalf  of  relig- 
ious liberty  at  a  crisis  when  this  is  outraged  on  one  side 
and  threatened  on  the  other.  I  should  be  false  to  my 
own  English  ancestry  if  I  did  not  put  the  rights  of  con- 
science above  all  other  rights  of  the  individual,  and  did 
not  contend  for  these  rights  in  others  as  if  they  were  my 
own.     Those  rights  so  persistently  outraged  in  Turkey 


TURKISH  INTOLERANCE.  177 

by  Mobammedan  fanaticism  are  now  tbreatened  with 
tbe  bigotry  of  the  Greek  Church  and  the  intolerance  of 
the  Russian  ecclesiastical  code,  if  Russia  shall  be  allowed 
to  occupy  Turkish  territory  or  to  direct  the  administni- 
tion  of  Turkish  provinces.  If,  for  the  cause  of  religious 
liberty  and  the  interests  of  peace  and  humanity,  Eng- 
land, at  all  hazards,  must  free  herself  of  complicity  with 
the  perfidy  and  intolerance  of  the  Tui'kish  government, 
how  can  she  ally  herself  with  the  military  antagonist  of 
Turkey,  whose  perfidy  in  respect  of  the  treaty  of  Pai'is  is 
no  less  patent,  and  whose  intolerance  is  no  less  stringent 
and  hardly  less  cruel  ?  Or  how  can  England  give  way 
to  Russian  ascendency  in  Turkey  without  first  demand- 
ing of  Russia  the  same  guarantees  for  religious  liberty 
■which  Russia  professes  to  demand  of  the  government  of 
the  Porte? 

The  indignation  and  abhorrence  so  justly  roused 
against  Turkey  in  England  are  due  to  two  causes :  the 
perfidy  of  Turkey  toward  the  Powers  which  had  ad- 
mitted her  to  the  concert  of  Europe,  and  her  intolerance 
and  inhumanity  toward  her  Christian  subjects.  In  view 
of  the  Hatti'  Humaioun  of  February,  1856,  in  which  the 
Sublime  Porte  pledged  to  its  Christian  subjects  certain 
privileges  and  immunities,  religious  and  political,  the 
congress  of  Paris,  in  March,  1856,  admitted  Turkey  to 
an  equal  status  among  the  contracting  Powers;  at  the 
same  time  declaring  [art.  IX.]  :  "  It  is  clearly  understood 
that  it  [the  Hatti'  Humaioun]  cannot,  in  any  case,  give 
to  the  said  Powers  the  right  to  interfere,  either  collec- 
tively or  separately,  in  the  relations  of  his  majesty  the 
Sultan  with  his  subjects,  nor  in  the  internal  administra- 
tion of  his  empire."  One  cannot  but  marvel  now  at  the 
easy  confidence  of  the  Powers  in  binding  themselves  by 
such  a  clause.  But  Turkey  cannot  be  allowed  to  screen 
herself  behind  it,  for  she  has  deliberately  and  shamefully 

12 


178  SHALL  ENGLAND  SIDE  WITH  RUSSIA. 

violated  her  own  pledges  upon  which  this  declaration 
was  based.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  engagement  of 
the  Powers  [art.  VII.],  "  to  respect  the  independence 
and  the  territorial  integrity  of  the  Ottoman  empire." 
By  her  own  perfidy  Turkey  has  forfeited  all  claim  to  the 
joint  pi'otection  pledged  in  that  article.  But  does  the  vi- 
olation of  faith  by  Turkey  warrant  each  and  every  of  the 
signing  Powers  in  repudiating  for  itself  the  treaty  of 
Paris  as  null  and  void  ?  By  no  means.  By  article  VII. 
the  Powers  "guarantee  in  common  the  strict  observance 
of  that  engagement ;  and  will,  in  consequence,  consider  any 
act  tending  to  its  violation  as  a  question  of  general  inter- 
est." Article  VIII.  provides :  "  If  there  should  arise  be- 
tween the  Sublime  Porte  and  one  or  more  of  the  other 
signing  Powers  any  misunderstanding  which  might  endan- 
ger the  maintenance  of  their  relations,  the  Sublime  Porte 
and  each  of  such  Powers,  before  having  recourse  to  the  use 
of  force,  shall  afford  the  other  contracting  parties  the  op- 
portunity of  preventing  such  an  extremity  by  means  of 
their  mediation."  And  in  the  special  treaty  of  15th 
April,  1856,  between  Great  Britain,  Austria,  and  France, 
"  the  high  contracting  parties  guarantee  jointly  and  sev- 
erally the  independence  and  the  integrity  of  the  Ottoman 
empire  recorded  in  the  treaty  concluded  at  Paris  on  the 
30th  March,  1856.  Any  infraction  of  the  stipulations  of 
the  said  treaty  will  be  considered  by  the  Powers  signing 
the  present  treaty  as  a  casus  helli'^  Here  every  contin- 
gency is  anticipated  by  provisions  for  joint  action,  for 
consultation  in  common,  or  for  mediation.  Hence  the 
faithlessness  of  Turkey  —  so  far  from  absolving  the  other 
Powers  severally  from  the  obligations  of  the  treaty  of 
Paris,  or  warranting  any  one  of  those  Powers  to  threaten 
Turkey  with  force,  in  the  first  instance  —  really  sum- 
mons those  Powers  to  meet  together  under  that  treaty, 
and  to  deal  with  Turkey  for  her  breach  of  faith.     There 


RUSSIAN  OFFENSES.  179 

were  seven  signataries  to  the  treiity  of  Paris.  If  the 
perfidy  of  one  could  absolve  the  remaining  six  not  only 
from  obligations  to  the  delinquent  Power,  but  from  en- 
gagements with  each  other  solemnly  entered  into  as  a 
provision  against  any  such  delinquent,  then  why  go 
through  the  farce  of  making  a  treaty  ?  What  hope  is 
there  for  the  peace  of  Europe  if  a  treaty  having  an  ex- 
press provision  for  mediation  can  be  torn  into  shreds  and 
thrown  away  at  the  will  of  either  of  the  signataries,  and 
then  disowned  by  the  rest  ? 

But  Russia  has  violated  the  treaty  of  Paris  no  less  fla- 
grantly than  has  Turkey.  Article  XXVIII.  of  that 
treaty  placed  the  rights  and  immunities  of  Servia  "  un- 
der the  collective  guarantee  of  the  contracting  Powers  ;  " 
and  art.  XXIX.  declares  that  "  no  armed  intervention 
can  take  place  in  Servia  without  previous  agreement  be- 
tween the  high  contracting  Powers."  No  doubt  the 
grievances  of  Servia  were  great.  In  other  circumstances 
these  might  have  justified  her  in  an  act  of  revolution,  — 
which,  however,  I  suppose  the  Peace  Society  would 
hardly  sanction.  But  though  I  believe  in  the  right  of 
armed  resistance  to  oppression,  I  cannot  see  that  Servia 
was  called  to  that  last  and  desperate  resort.  Servia,  as  a 
recognized  principality,  had  her  independent  and  national 
administration,  as  well  as  full  liberty  of  worship,  of  leg- 
islation, of  commerce,  and  of  navigation.  She  was  un- 
der the  care  of  friendly  and  powerful  guardians,  to  whom 
she  could  appeal  to  compel  Turkey  to  fulfill  the  stipula- 
tions of  the  treaty  of  Paris.  But  Servia  herself  dis- 
carded that  treaty ;  and  without  being  attacked  by  Tur- 
key plunged  into  a  war  that  has  desolated  her  territory, 
brought  misery  to  tens  of  thousands,  and  threatened  the 
peace  of  Europe.  Has  then  the  Peace  Society  no  word 
of  censure  for  Servia  as  w-ell  as  for  Turkey  ? 

But  was  this  the  act  of  Servia  alone  ?     It  is  notorious 


180  SFIALL  ENGLAND  SIDE   WITH  RUSSIA. 

that  Russia  poured  supplies  of  men  and  material  into 
Servia,  organized  her  armies,  and  inspired  her  counsels  ; 
and  though  all  this  was  unofficial,  Prince  Bismarck  has 
not  hesitated  to  speak  openly  of  "  the  sort  of  war  that 
Mussia  carried  on  in  Servia."  Russia  could  have  re- 
strained Servia ;  could  have  repressed  hostilities,  and  have 
convened,  upon  equal  terms,  all  her  co-signataries  to  the 
treaty  of  Paris.  But  she  chose  to  regard  that  treaty  as 
practically  annulled. 

The  course  of  Russia  in  Servia  is  the  natural  sequence 
of  her  own  breach  of  faith  in  1870.  By  art.  XIII.  of 
the  treaty  of  Paris  it  was  agreed  that  "  the  Black  Sea 
being  neutralized,  his  majesty  the  Emperor  of  all  the 
Russias  and  his  imperial  majesty  the  Sultan  engage  not 
to  establish  or  to  maintain  upon  that  coast  any  military- 
maritime  arsenal."  In  1870,  taking  advantage  of  the 
war  between  Germany  and  France  and  the  general  pre- 
occupations of  Europe,  Prince  Gortschakoff  sent  out  the 
following  note,  under  date  of  October  31st :  "  His  impe- 
rial majesty  cannot  any  longer  hold  himself  bound  by 
the  stipulations  of  the  treaty  of  30th  March,  1856  as  far 
as  they  restrict  his  sovereign  rights  in  the  Black  Sea." 
That  was  indeed  an  imperial  way  of  disposing  of  a 
treaty !  Has  Turkey  committed  aijy  breach  of  faith 
more  defiant  ?  The  thing  being  done,  the  treaty  of  Lon- 
don of  13th  March,  1871  was  made  to  conform  to  it ;  but 
for  that  act  of  Russia  in  1870  there  is  but  one  word,  and 
that  word  is  perfidy.  And  now  shall  England,  incensed 
at  the  perfidy  of  Turkey,  condone  the  perfidy  of  Russia, 
and  commit  the  dearest  interests  of  religious  liberty  and 
the  destiny  of  eastern  Europe  to  a  Power  that  no  treaty 
nor  convention  can  bind  ?  I  love  to  think  of  England  as 
caring  for  honor.  There  never  can  be  peace  in  Europe 
until  honor  is  held  sacred  between  the  nations.  Your 
address  closes  with  an  eloquent  appeal  "  that  the  Powers 


INTOLERANCE  OF  TURKEY.  181 

of  the  civilized  world  should  devise,  and  by  mutual  agree- 
ment establish,  some  settled  form  of  international  juris- 
diction." But  the  basis  of  such  agreement  must  be  honor. 
Now  the  treaty  of  Paris  did  contain  a  mutual  agree- 
ment for  "  mediation."  Is  there  then  no  rebuke  for  a 
Power  that  has  openly  trampled  on  that  agreement,  and 
violated  the  express  provisions  of  the  treaty  where  these 
seemed  against  its  own  "  sovereign  rights  ?  "  Is  perfidy 
a  crime  only  in  a  Mussulman  ?  Never  was  it  so  impor- 
tant that  England  should  speak  out  boldly  for  honor. 
Let  the  friends  of  peace  insist  now  upon  this,  and  they 
will  soon  have  the  peoples  of  Christendom  on  their  side. 

The  other  ground  of  indignation  at  Turkey  is  her  fa- 
natical intolerance,  which  has  driven  her  to  inhuman  ex- 
cesses against  her  subjects  not  of  the  Moslem  faith.  This 
century  has  witnessed  nothing  more  noble  than  the  up- 
rising of  the  English  people  in  behalf  of  the  oppressed 
Christians  of  the  East.  These  must  be  rescued  from  the 
intolerance  of  their  Turkish  masters.  But  intolerance 
is  the  thing  to  be  guarded  against,  and  in  delivering  the 
lamb  from  the  vulture  we  must  not  put  it  into  the  talons 
of  the  eagle,  though  this  be  the  nobler  bird.  How  then 
does  Russia  stand  on  this  same  count  of  intolerance  and 
inhumanity  ?  I  shall  not  go  back  to  her  intervention  to 
crush  the  liberties  of  Hungary,  to  her  subjugation  of  Po- 
land, to  her  proscription  of  Mohammedan  tribes  brought 
under  by  conquest.  It  is  alleged  that  the  spirit  of  the 
Russian  government  is  more  mild  and  liberal  than  for- 
merly, and  we  have  to  do  with  the  Russia  of  to-day.  I 
go  back  then  but  six  years.  In  1870  the  Swiss  Evangel- 
ical Alliance  issued  a  "  protest  and  appeal  against  the 
fanatical  outrages  of  Russian  ecclesiastics  in  the  East  Sea 
Provinces,  in  Poland,  and  in  Lithuania,  upon  Protes- 
tants, Catholics,  and  Israelites."  On  June  23d  of  the 
same  year  a  deputation  led  by  Monod,  De  Presseus6,  and 


182  SHALL  ENGLAND  SIDE  WITH  RUSSIA. 

others  had  audience  of  the  emperor  of  Russia  at  Stutt- 
gart, and  laid  before  his  majesty  the  grievances  of  his 
Lutheran,  Catholic,  and  Jewish  subjects.  His  majesty 
deplored  the  facts  which  the  deputation  stated,  promised 
to  do  what  he  could  personally  to  relieve  the  sufferers, 
but  added  that  he  could  not  interfere  with  the  laws  of 
the  empire  or  of  the  church.  The  following  are  speci- 
mens of  these  laws,  not  from  the  dark  ages,  but  from  the 
Russian  penal  code  of  May,  1846. 

"  Whoever  shall  abandon  the  orthodox  confession  for 
another  Christian  confession  shall  be  handed  over  to  the 
ecclesiastical  authority  to  be  exhorted  and  enlightened, 
and  that  he  may  be  dealt  with  after  the  rules  of  the 
church."  What  sort  of  dealing  this  would  be  may  be 
inferred  from  the  next  article.  "  Whoever  shall  solicit 
another  to  secede  from  the  orthodox  to  another  Chris- 
tian confession,  shall  be  sentenced  to  loss  of  civil  rights, 
banishment  to  Tobolsk  or  Tomsk,  or  to  corporal  punish- 
ment and  penal  servitude  for  one  or  two  years." 

The  poor  Lutherans  of  Liefland  were  cajoled,  by  false 
promises,  into  joining  the  Greek  Church.  Finding 
themselves  deceived,  they  attempted  to  return  to  their 
old  faith,  but  these  penalties  were  visited  upon  them. 
Wives  who  had  not  gone  over  with  their  husbands  to 
the  Greek  Church  were  threatened  with  divorce  ;  chil- 
dren were  compelled  with  violence  to  be  baptized  and 
confirmed.  In  1871  the  British  Evangelical  Alliance 
issued  a  powerful  appeal  "  on  behalf  of  the  Lutherans 
of  the  Baltic  provinces  of  Russia,  and  against  their  per- 
secution by  the  Orthodox  Greek  Church  of  that  empire." 
I  wish  that  appeal  might  go  with  your  address  into  the 
hands  of  every  Englishman.  On  the  14th  July,  1871,  a 
strong  deputation  of  English,  Americans,  French,  Swedes, 
Swiss,  Belgians,  Germans  (among  the  latter  Professor 
Tischendorf  who  had  procured  for  the  emperor  the  Sina- 


INTOLERANCE  OF  RUSSIA.  183 

itic  Codex),  sought  an  audience  of  the  emperor  of  Rus- 
sia, to  renew  the  plea  of  the  Evangelical  Alliance  for  his 
persecuted  subjects.  Prince  Gortscliakoff  threw  dust  in 
the  eyes  of  this  deputation,  and  the  emperor  declined  to 
receive  it  because  he  could  not  yield  to  outward  pressure 
in  the  internal  administration  of  his  empire,  —  precisely 
the  reason  that  the  Sultan  gives  for  declining  the  inter- 
vention of  foreign  powers. 

Affairs  in  Liefland  were  smoothed  over,  but  the  Dra- 
conian laws  remain,  and  are  by  no  means  a  dead  letter. 
In  April,  1872,  a  respectful  application  was  made  to  the 
government  at  St.  Petersburg  for  permission  to  circulate 
in  Russian  Armenia  the  Armenian  version  of  the  Bi- 
ble, published  at  Constantinople,  and  freely  circulated 
in  Turkey.  Copies  sent  to  Russia  had  been  confiscated 
at  the  custom-houses  on  the  border  ;  and  after  twenty 
months'  delay,  the  request  that  Russian  Armenians,  like 
the  Turkish  Armenians,  should  be  allowed  the  Bible  in 
their  own  tongue,  was  refused  by  the  Russian  govern- 
ment. Baffled  in  the  request  for  Bibles,  an  Armenian 
teacher  at  Tiflis  requested  a  visit  from  the  missionaries 
who  were  laboring  among  his  people  at  Constantinople. 
Two  American  missionaries  going  into  Russian  Armenia 
upon  this  sacred  errand  wei-e  expelled  by  the  authorities. 
This  was  in  February,  1873.  In  1875  an  agent  of  the 
Bible  Society  at  Erivan,  Russia,  was  put  under  arrest 
and  banished  from  the  country. 

When  Russia  speaks  of  the  "  oppressed  Christians  "  in 
Turkey,  she  means  Christians  of  the  Greek  Church  and 
of  the  Slavic  race.  What  Russia  thinks  of  the  liberty  of 
Roman  Catholics,  let  Poland  testify  ;  what  sort  of  toler- 
ation she  would  grant  to  Protestant  missionaries  and 
converts,  let  Armenia  witness.  But  religious  freedom 
knows  no  distinction  of  creed  or  race.  And  the  question 
for  Europe,    and  especially  for  England,  to   consider  is 


184  SHALL  ENGLAND  SIDE  WITH  RUSSIA. 

whether  the  Greek  Church  in  Turkey,  notoriously  am- 
bitious to  rule  at  Constantinople,  shall  be  armed  with 
Russian  battalions  or  a  Russian  police  to  enforce  her  big- 
otry against  Jews,  Moslems,  Armenians,  Catholics,  and 
Protestants.  Is  it  said  the  Greek  Church  can  be  re- 
formed ?  Then  let  her  reform.  But  do  not  gird  her 
with  the  sword  of  Russia  during  the  process  of  reforma- 
tion. 

It  is  not  easy  to  penetrate  the  veil  of  Russian  atroci- 
ties ;  but  here  are  specimens  of  what  Russia  has  done 
upon  the  soil  of  Turkey^  warnings  of  wliat  she  would  do 
if  she  should  be  put  in  occupation  of  Turkish  territory, 
or  into  the  administration  of  Turkish  provinces.  In 
April,  1870,  one  Medet,  a  native  of  Alexandropol,  Russia, 
went  to  Kars,  in  Turkish  Armenia,  to  reside.  He  there 
attended  an  evangelical  service,  with  which  the  Turkish 
authorities  did  not  interfere.  But  as  a  Russian  subject, 
Medet  was  brought  before  the  Russian  consul,  fiogged^ 
imprisoned,  and  released  only  upon  giving  his  oath  that 
he  would  never  again  go  to  the  service.  In  this  very 
year,  1876,  another  Russian  of  Alexandropol,  who  had 
gone  to  Erzeroom,  in  Turkish  Armenia,  to  take  up  his 
abode,  was  forced  by  tlie  Russian  consul  to  return  to 
Russia  because  he  had  identified  himself  with  the  Prot- 
estant movement  tolerated  in  Turkey  1  American  mis- 
sionaries long  resident  in  Turkey  have  openly  testified 
that  "  they  have  been  mainly  indebted  to  Russian  influ- 
ences for  the  persecutions  that  have  attended  their  labors 
for  the  last  forty  years."  One  of  these  missionaries 
writes  me,  "  What  are  we  to  apprehend  in  the  event  of 
Russian  rule  in  Turkey  but  just  that  which  now  exists 
over  the  Russian  border  ?  The  point  to  be  emphasized 
is  the  vital  importance  of  guarantees  for  religious  free- 
dom, in  the  English  and  American  sense  of  the  word, 
whatever  arrangements  may  be  made,  and  whoever  may 


TUE  DUTY  OF  ENGLAND.  185 

rule  in  any  part  of  Turkey."  I  feel  confident  that  every 
friend  of  peace  and  of  religious  liberty  in  England  would 
respond  to  this  appeal. 

The  danger  is  that  Russia  and  Turkey  will  yet  go  to 
war.  In  that  case  Russia  will  find  tiie  conquest  of  Tur- 
key no  easy  task ;  and  Germany,  which  has  not  been 
forward  in  expressions  of  sympathy  or  measures  of  relief 
for  the  unhappy  Bulgarians,  will  step  in  where  England 
ought  to  stand  as  the  arbiter  of  peace  and  of  provinces. 

It  is  agreed  on  all  sides  that  England  cannot  now  fight 
for  Turkey.  But  can  she  side  with  Russia  ?  What  then 
becomes  of  that  faith  between  nations  upon  which  must 
rest  our  hope  of  arbitration  in  lieu  of  war  ?  Shall  the 
partner  who  in  1870  broke  faith  with  the  co-signataries  of 
united  Europe,  and  who,  though  pledged  to  mediation, 
has  connived  at  war,  now  have  the  confidence  and  sanc- 
tion of  English  honor  ?  Shall  England  side  with  Russia  ? 
Where  then  is  the  hope  of  religious  liberty,  if  Muscovite 
intolerance  can  have  the  confidence  and  support  of  Eng- 
lish freedom  ?  I  cannot  doubt  that  England  will  let  the 
world  know  that  she  stands  firm  and  true  for  the  faith 
of  treaties,  for  freedom  of  conscience,  and  the  rights  of 
man. 


IX. 

WHAT  IS   SCIENCE? 
(From  the  Britith  Quarterly,  January,  1879.) 

The  strife  over  science  and  religion  would  be  greatly 
restricted  by  a  rigorous  and  binding  definition  of  the 
terms  in  dispute.  Scientific  theory  and  theological  dogma 
would  go  on  contending ;  but  that  which  is  true  in 
science  and  that  which  is  true  in  religion  can  never  come 
in  collision,  and  the  demarcation  of  each  would  make 
their  harmony  apparent  almost  without  discussion.  To 
determine  specific  points  in  controversy  between  modern 
naturism  and  the  Christian  faith  will  be  comparatively 
easy  when  the  whole  field  of  controversy  shall  have  been 
circumscribed  by-  logical  definitions.  The  definition  of 
science  and  the  definition  of  religion  must  form  the  exact 
limits  by  which  every  question  .between  them  must  be 
measured,  and  every  line  of  argument  must  be  tested  and 
adjusted.  But,  first  of  all,  a  word  should  be  given  to  the 
characteristics  and  functions  of  definition. 

A  definition  should  be  framed  with  reference  to  the 
thing  defined,  and  not  to  any  use  to  which  either  the 
term  or  the  definition  may  be  applied  in  some  wider 
statement  or  system  of  thought.  It  should  include  every- 
thing that  is  essential,  and  exclude  everything  that  is  not 
essential,  to  a  conception  of  the  thing  defined.  In  other 
words,  the  thing  should  be  defined  as  it  is  —  an  und  far 
sich  — "  in  itself,  by  itself,  for  its  own  sake."  Arch- 
bishop Thomson  has  concisely  stated  the  rules  of  defini- 


A   TRUE  DEFINITION.  187 

tion.  "  A  definition  must  recount  the  essential  attributes 
of  the  thing  defined  ;  the  definition  must  not  contain  the 
name  of  the  thing  defined ;  a  definition  must  be  precisely 
adequate  to  the  species  defined  ;  a  definition  must  not  be 
expressed  in  obscure  or  figurative  or  ambiguous  language  ; 
a  definition  must  not  be  negative  where  it  can  be  affirm- 
ative."^ To  these  rules,  so  obvious  in  themselves,  may 
be  added  the  following :  (1.)  A  definition  must  not  be 
framed  to  fit  a  theory.  Things  must  be  defined  as  they 
are,  and  generalization,  or  theory,  must  proceed  from 
things  as  logically  defined.  (2.)  A  definition  must  not 
beg  the  question  with  regard  to  any  dispute  concerning 
the  thing  defined.  For  example,  a  school  of  physicists, 
nowadays,  atte.mpt  to  restrict  the  term  science  to  knowl- 
edge founded  upon  observation  and  experience,  to  the 
empirical  in  contrast  with  the  intuitional  and  the  specula- 
tive. Hence  they  refuse  to  philosophy  or  metaphysics  a 
place  among  the  sciences.  To  meet  this  narrow  position, 
Avenarius,  for  instance,  would  limit  the  term  philosophy 
by  the  empirical  chai-acter  of  its  objects,  the  sole  aim  of 
philosophy  being  to  combine  in  one  notion  all  the  special 
experimental  sciences.^  Of  course,  if  science  is  knowl- 
edge gained  by  experience,  and  if  philosophy  has  to  do 
only  with  facts  of  experience,  then  philosophy  is  a  science 
by  the  very  terms  of  the  definition.  But  as  toward  the 
objection  raised  by  some  physicists  against  philosophy, 
such  a  definition  begs  the  question,  and  hence  contributes 
nothing  to  the  reconciliation  of  science  with  philosophy. 
If  philosophy  is  truly  entitled  to  be  called  a  science,  then 
the  supposed  definition  of  science  is  too  arbitrarily  exclu- 
sive, and  the  definition  of  philosophy  framed  to  meet  it 
is  unphilosophically  limited.     So  great  a  master  of  phi- 

^  An  Outline  of  the  Laws  of  Thought,  §  57. 

2  Vierteljahrsschrift  fiir  wissenschqflliche  Philosophie.     R.  Avena- 
rius.    Erstes  Heft,  pp.  1-14. 


188  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

losophy  and  of  English  style  as  Colei'idge  speaks  of 
"  Shakespeare's  deep  and  accurate  science  in  mental  phi- 
losophy." Some  German  writers  have  attempted  to  draw 
the  distinction  between  Phllosophie  and  Wissenschaft  so 
sharply  as  to  exclude  philosophy  from  the  category  of  the 
sciences  ;  but  in  the  constitution  of  a  German  university 
the  philosophical  faculty  includes  the  physical  or  experi- 
mental sciences  along  with  philology,  history,  and  meta- 
physics. If  physicists  object  to  such  a  classification,  their 
objection  is  not  to  be  overruled  by  a  petitio  prineipii  in 
the  definition  of  philosophy.  Any  such  device  vitiates  a 
definition  as  the  basis  of  an  argument.  (3.)  A  defini- 
tion should  not  employ  terms  in  a  strained  or  unusual 
meaning,  nor  should  it  coin  new  terms,  where  words  in 
common  use  would  suffice  for  clearness  and  precision.  If 
an  essayist  defines  the  principal  terms  of  his  thesis  by 
some  strange  or  forced  meaning,  he  will  be  sure  to  mis- 
lead his  readers,  who  will  lose  sight  of  his  distinctions, 
and  carry  along  in  their  reading  the  customary  meaning 
of  his  words  ;  and  he  will  also  be  in  danger  of  misleading 
himself,  by  unconsciously  using  his  forced  terms  in  their 
old  meaning,  to  the  prejudice  or  perversion  of  his  logic. 
If,  again,  he  coins  new  terms  for  old  and  familiar  things, 
for  the  sake  of  maintaining  some  novel  proposition  con- 
cerning them,  he  can  at  most  make  out  but  a  technical 
proof  of  this  abnormal  proposition  —  as  with  an  algebraic 
formula,  in  which  all  the  terms  should  represent  arbitrary 
and  unknown  quantities.  He  cannot  hope  to  establish 
in  the  minds  of  his  readers  the  conviction  of  an  absolute 
and  universal  truth. 

One  who  writes  a  philosophical  or  a  scientific  treatise 
should  frame  his  definitions  upon  the  principles  now  indi- 
cated, and  must  be  held  strictly  to  the  meaning  he  has 
himself  assigned  to  the  leading  terms  which  he  employs 
in  his  discussion.     To  write  without  careful  definitions 


THE    WAR  OF  WORDS.  189 

upon  a  subject  in  the  treatment  of  which  precision  of 
language  is  of  the  very  essence  of  truth  is  simply  to  play 
upon  words,  or  rather  upon  the  ignorance  or  credulity  of 
the  reader.  An  essay  published  in  the  interest  of  peace 
maintained  that  honor  is  a  false,  cruel,  pagan  principle  of 
action  ;  that  a  Christian  people  should  expunge  honor 
from  their  code,  and  act  only  in  view  of  what  is  just, 
true,  and  right.  Now,  had  the  essayist  looked  into  his 
dictionary,  he  would  have  found  that,  according  to  the 
usage  of  the  best  writers,  honor  is  defined  to  be  "  a  nice 
sense  of  what  is  right,  just,  and  true,  with  a  course  of 
life  corresponding  thereto  ; "  in  short,  honor  is  the  sum 
and  essence  of  all  the  virtues  by  which  this  writer  would 
supplant  it.  Shenstone  would  have  taught  him  that 
"  true  honor  is  to  honesty  what  the  court  of  chancery  is 
to  common  law ;  "  Shakespeare,  that  in  woman,  honor  is 
the  equivalent  of  chastity  ;  and  Wordsworth,  — 
"  Say,  what  is  honor  ?  'T  is  the  finest  sense 
Of  justice  which  the  human  mind  can  frame." 

There  is  indeed  a  conventional  notion  of  honor  which 
fashion  has  imposed,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  so-called 
"  code  of  honor"  which  regulates  the  duel.  Such  honor 
has  shown  itself  false,  cruel,  unchristian,  and  this  code  is 
fast  being  banished  from  civilized  society.  But  to  em- 
ploy this  perversion  of  honor  for  a  tirade  against  honor 
as  a  principle  of  conduct  is  a  fault  in  philosophy  that 
necessitates  a  failure  in  rhetoric.  Both  would  have  been 
avoided  by  a  careful  definition  of  the  thing  to  be  dis- 
cussed under  the  term  honor. 

How  much  of  all  controversy  in  philosophy  and  theol- 
ogy has  been  a  mere  war  of  words  !  How  many  volumes 
of  such  controversy  might  have  been  spared,  had  the  dis- 
putants respected  logic  and  the  dictionary  !  Precision  is 
of  the  first  importance  where  the  most  vital  interests  of 
man  are  in  dispute  —  his  knowledge  and  his  faith.    Hence 


190  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE t 

a  clear  definition  of  the  terms  science  and  religion  —  a 
definition  framed  strictly  according  to  the  rules  already 
laid  down  —  should  be  the  starting-point  of  every  com- 
parison between  them ;  and  liowever  much  the  argument 
may  be  extended,  the  definition  should  hold  it  firmly  as  in 
the  jaws  of  a  vise.  This  care  in  defining  the  terms  of  tlie 
discussion  is  the  more  necessary  because,  in  the  contro- 
versy that  has  of  late  arisen  between  science  and  religion, 
these  terms  have  been  used  with  much  vagueness,  and 
some  physicists  have  rushed  into  this  controversy  without 
even  attempting  to  define  the  things  about  which  they 
•were  contending.  Dr.  John  W.  Draper  has  written  what 
he  calls  a  "  History  of  the  Conflict  between  Religion  and 
Science  ;  "  ^  but  in  a  volume  of  nearly  four  hundred  pages 
there  is  no  attempt  at  a  precise  statement  of  the  things 
in  conflict,  nor  of  the  grounds  of  the  controversy.  His 
conception  of  religion  seems  to  be  "  a  quiescent,  immo- 
bile faith  "  (p.  364),  as  represented  by  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic Ciiurch  ;  his  conception  of  science  that  "  it  relies  on 
a  practical  interrogation  of  nature "  (p.  33).  On  one 
page  he  tells  us  that  "  science  is  in  its  nature  progres- 
sive ;  but  faith  is  in  its  nature  unchangeable,  stationary  " 
(preface,  p.  vii.)  ;  on  another,  that  "  it  is  not  given  to 
religions  to  endure  forever.  They  necessarily  undergo 
transformation  with  the  intellectual  development  of  man  " 
(p.  328).  Faith,  which  on  one  page  of  Draper's  history 
stands  "  quiescent  and  immobile,"  on  another  is  subject 
to  the  same  law  of  transformation  and  development  with 
the  intellect  of  man.  The  triumphs  of  science,  he  tells 
us,  "are  solid  and  enduring"  (p.  365)  ;  but  could  any- 
thing be  more  fluctuating  than  have  been  the  sciences  of 
astronomy,  geology,  physiology,  chemistry,  heat,  light, 
magnetism,  though  every  new  change   of   doctrine  has 

*  One  of  t lie  volumes  of  the  International  Scientific  Series, 


VIEIVS   OF  DRAPER  AND  HAECKEL.  191 

been  put  forth  under  the  warrant  of  "  a  practical  interro- 
gation of  nature "  ?  A  work  written  in  such  a  vague 
slipshod  style  as  this  of  Draper  has  no  value  for  the  phil-- 
osophical  inquirer,  and  can  only  mystify  the  common 
reader.  The  author  is  guilty  of  that  which  he  charges 
upon  the  teachers  of  religion,  —  assuming  to  speak  with 
the  authority  of  truth,  he  imposes  upon  the  *'  blind  faith  " 
of  the  ignorant.  Such  a  book  shuns  the  test  of  definition, 
since,  with  any  clear  conception  of  either  science  or  re- 
ligion, it  could  never  have  been  written. 

Professor  Ernst  Haeckel  has  published  what  he  styles 
the  "  History  of  Creation,"  ^  with  the  avowed  object  of 
setting  aside  the  religious  conception  of  a  personal  Crea- 
tor by  the  monistic  conception  of  natural  laws  or  forces 
as  the  cause  of  all  things.  Yet  instead  of  defining  with 
scientific  precision  such  pregnant  terms  as  "  nature  "  and 
"  religion,"  he  seeks  to  put  us  off  with  puerile  declama- 
tion. "  Science,  as  an  objective  result  of  sensuous  expe- 
rience and  of  the  striving  of  human  reason  after  knowl- 
edge, has  nothing  to  do  with  the  subjective  ideas  of  faith, 
which  are  preached  by  a  single  man  as  the  direct  inspira- 
tions or  revelations  of  the  Creator,  and  then  believed  in 
by  the  dependent  multitude  "  (chap.  xxiv.).  As  if  there 
were  no  objective  realities  to  faith,  no  knowledge  as  its 
ground-work,  no  religion  apart  from  a  professed  revela- 
tion, no  faith  in  any  human  soul  except  as  this  is  im- 
posed by  some  pretentious  teacher,  no  religious  thought 
or  feeling  in  any  great  mind  from  Plato  and  Socrates  to 
Leibnitz  and  Stuart  Mill  I  Haeckel  says  again,  with 
emphasis,  "  Where  faith  commences^  science  ends.  Both 
these  arts  of  the  human  mind  must  be  strictly  kept  apart 
from  each  other.  Faith  has  its  origin  in  the  poetic  im- 
agination ;  knowledge,  on  the  other  hand,  originates  in 
the  reasoning  intelligence  of  man  "  (chap.  i.).     As  if  it 

1  Naturliche  ScMpfungsgeschichte.     Von  Ernst  Haeckel.     Jena. 


192  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE r 

were  an  "  art  of  the  poetic  imagination  "  to  accept  tlie 
report  of  a  scientific  explorer  or  investigator  concerning 
bis  discoveries  upon  simple  faith  in  his  testimony,  with 
no  "  sensuous  experience "  whatever !  As  if  a  faitli 
worthy  to  be  brought  into  contrast  with  science  did  not, 
at  least,  suppose  itself  to  rest  upon  a  basis  of  knowledge, 
and  bring  its  subject-matter  to  the  test  of  "  the  reasoning 
intelligence !  "  Borrowing  a  poetic  figure  from  the  faith 
which  he  most  contemns,  Haeckel  says,  "  Seience  has  to 
pluck  the  blessed  fruits  from  the  tree  of  knowledge,  un- 
concerned whether  these  conquests  trench  upon  the  poet- 
ical imaginings  of  faith  or  not  "  (chap.  i.).  But  this, 
forsooth,  is  no  forbearance  on  the  part  of  science,  and 
marks  no  such  sharp  discrimination  between  knowledge 
and  faith  as  the  author  has  asserted  in  the  formula, 
"  Where  faith  commences,  science  ends."  So  far  is  this 
from  being  true,  that  at  some  point  science  must  merge 
its  knowledge  of  details  in  a  belief  in  laws,  forces,  prin- 
ciples. What  science  is  there  which  does  not  summon 
us  to  the  exercise  of  faith,  in  order  to  its  own  comple- 
tion ?  Not  mathematics,  which  tasks  "  the  poetic  imag- 
ination "  to  conceive  of  lines,  forms,  figures,  which  have, 
and  can  have,  no  corresponding  realities.  Not  astronomy, 
surely,  for  though  this  is  perhaps  of  all  sciences  the  best 
attested  by  observation,  yet  the  Copernican  theory  of  the 
earth's  motion  cannot  be  asserted  as  the  absolute  truth  of 
knowledge,  but  only  as  the  highest  attainable  probabil- 
ity hitherto  offered  to  faith.  The  theory  accounts  for  so 
many  phenomena,  it  is  confirmed  by  such  a  multitude  of 
observations,  and  reduces  the  unsolved  difficulties  to  such 
a  minimum,  that  there  remains  no  reasonable  ground  of 
doubt  that  the  earth  revolves  upon  its  own  axis  and 
moves  round  the  sun. 

"  Astronomy  ventures  itself  upon  the  approval  of  mankind 
through  the  practical  realization  of  its  theories  of  motion,  though 


ATOMS  AND  FORCE.  193 

it  knows  absolutely  nothing  concerning  the  first  impulse  of  mo- 
tion, and  is  utterly  ignorant  of  the  inner  essence  of  the  so-called 
powers  with  which  it  works  so  boldly  and  successfully,  and 
which  are  only  presented  under  happy  mathematical  images."  * 

Now  these  mathematical  forma  are  but  ideals  of  th 
imagination  —  pure  abstractions.  We  can  build  up  a 
universe  upon  them  with  as  much  confidence  as  we  tread 
upon  tlie  solid  ground  ;  but  we  cannot  see  them,  handle 
them,  nor  make  them  in  any  way  the  "  objects  of  sensu- 
ous experience."  We  do  not  arrive  at  these  mathemati- 
cal conceptions  through  "  the  interrogation  of  nature." 
The  most  perfect  instrument  for  the  investigation  of 
physics  is  not  itself  physical,  but  a  product  of  the  imag- 
ination. And  imagination  from  time  to  time  devises  new 
terms  and  powers  for  the  solution  of  problems  in  physics. 
Kant  laid  down  the  proposition  that  "  in  each  particular 
natural  science  only  so  much  of  science  proper  could  be 
found  as  there  was  of  mathematics  to  be  found  in  it."  ^ 
To  meet  the  more  recent  advances  of  science,  Du  Bois- 
Rej'mond  proposes  to  substitute  for  mathematics  the  me- 
chanical force  or  action  of  atoms.^  But  here  again  we 
are  in  the  region  of  the  ideal,  since  we  know  neither 
"  atom  "  nor  "  force."  This  simple  and  elementary  terra 
force  is  as  much  misused  and  abused  as  any  word  in  the 
whole  vocabulary  of  science.  "  We  have,  as  yet,  abso- 
lutely no  proof  whatever  that  force  proper  has  objective 
existence.  In  all  probability  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
force,  any  more  than  there  is  such  a  thing  as  sound,  or 
light,  whichare  mere  names  for  physical  impressions  pro- 

^  Wahrlieii  und  Wahrscheinlichkeit.  Von  Wilhelm  Forster,  Pro- 
fessor iind  Director  der  Konigliclien  Sternwarte  in  Berlin.  The  true 
place  of  probability  in  science  and  logic  will  be  discussed  in  a  subse- 
quent article. 

2  Vorrede  zu  den  Metaphysischen  Anfangs-grunden  der  Naturwissen- 
schaft. 

8  Uther  die  Grenzen  der  Naturerkennens. 
13 


104  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

duced  upon  special  nerves  by  the  energy  of  undulatory 
motions  of  certain  media."  ^  Gravitation,  force,  monad, 
etlier,  and  the  like,  are  not  things  that  we  know  by  sen- 
suous experience,  but  names  upon  which  we  hang  our 
faith.  So  far  from  it  being  true  that  "  where  faith  be- 
gins, science  ends,"  there  could  no  more  be  a  science 
without  faith  than  there  could  be  extension  without 
space.  Yet  it  is  by  such  superficial,  meaningless,  un- 
tenable assertions,  put  forth  with  an  air  of  scientific  dog- 
matism, that  Haeckel  and  Draper  startle  the  timid  and 
impose  upon  the  credulous. 

A  much  more  respectable  authority  than  these.  Pro- 
fessor John  Tyndall,  recognizes  "  the  immovable  basis  of 
the  religious  sentiment  in  the  nature  of  man,"  and  would 
have  men  of  science  regard  the  religions  of  the  world  as 
"  the  forms  of  a  force,  mischievous,  if  permitted  to  in- 
trude on  the  region  of  knowledge,  over  which  it  holds  no 
command;  but  capable  of  being  guided  to  noble  issues 
in  the  region  of  emotion,  which  is  its  proper  and  elevated 
sphere."  ^  It  is  now  the  fashion  of  a  school  of  physicists 
in  England  to  speak  flippantly  of  religion  as  a  matter  of 
feeling  without  warrant  of  reason,  of  faith  as  fancy,  and 
science  alone  as  knowledge ;  and  their  use  of  the  terms 
science  and  knowledge  gives  to  this  distinction  an  air  of 
plausibility.  But  is  this  exclusive,  almost  professional, 
appropriation  of  such  words  as  science  and  knowledge 
warranted  by  etymology  and  usage  ?  There  is  wisdom 
and  propriety  in  changing  the  terminology  of  science  to 
meet  the  advancing  conditions  of  knowledge.  Sciences 
may  be  subdivided,  new  classifications  may  be  made,  and 
a  new  nomenclature  adopted  to  mark  these  distinctions. 
It  is  the  prerogative  of  men  of  science  to  make  such  divi- 

*  The  Unseen  Universe.     By  B.  Stewart  and  P.  G.  Tait.     Third 
edition,  §  97. 

^  Address  before  the  British  Association  at  Belfast,  p.  60. 


KNOWLEDGE,  THE  CONVICTION  OF  CERTAINTY.    195 

sioiis  and  classifications  within  the  realm  of  science,  and 
to  promulgate  these  as  the  laws  of  their  peculiar  king- 
dom. Whether  philosophy  should  be  sharply  discrimi- 
nated from  science,  or  at  least  the  exact  sciences  should 
be  kept  distinct  from  philosophy,  is  a  question  of  words 
which  the  masters  of  philosophy  and  of  science  are  com- 
petent to  determine.  But  knoivledge  is  not  a  term  that 
can  be  thus  seized,  tethered,  and  impounded  within  the 
pale  of  any  school  or  sect.  This  is  the  common  property 
of  mankind,  since  in  every  human  mind  there  is  a  some- 
thing that  answers  to  what  we  call  knowledge,  and  in 
every  language  there  is  a  word  to  denote  that  thing. 
The  physicist  might  as  well  think  to  confine  the  atmos- 
phere within  the  receiver  of  his  air-pump,  the  chemist  to 
compress  the  rivers  into  his  retort,  as  to  monopolize  the 
term  knowledge  b}-^  the  limitations  of  his  particular 
science.  To  define  science  by  knowledge  is  only  to 
change  the  term  without  identifying  the  thing.  Since 
sdo  means  to  know  in  the  widest  signification  of  the 
word,  to  say  sqience  is  knowledge,  and  knowledge  is 
science,  is  like  knocking  two  billiard  balls  of  equal  size 
and  color  back  and  forth  against  each  other,  without 
ever  driving  either  into  the  pocket :  there  is  nothing 
gained  or  lost  on  either  side.  "  Science  is  knowledge," 
is  a  toying  with  words  which  contributes  nothing  to  pre- 
ciseness  of  meaning,  to  the  understanding  of  things.  All 
men  mean  something  when  they  talk  of  knowledge,  and 
this  common  thoufjht  or  element  in  the  minds  of  men 
which  differences  knowledge  from  everything  else  must 
lie  at  the  basis  of  our  definition  of  the  word.  That  sin- 
gle element  is  the  conviction  of  certainty. 

So  long  as  one  has  the  least  doubt  of  a  fact,  he  cannot 
be  said  to  know  it  as  a  fact.  What  one  guesses  to  be 
the  truth,  he  does  not  know  as  true.  What  one  esti- 
mates as  having  the  highest  degree  of  probability,  he 


196  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

does  not  know  to  be  real.  What  one  imagines  to  be  the 
solution  of  a  phenomenon  or  a  problem  —  for  exflmple, 
the  atom  in  physics,  the  molecule  in  chemistry  —  he  yet 
does  not  know  to  exist.  Only  when  the  mind  has  at- 
tained to  the  conviction  of  certainty  can  it  properly  be 
said  to  know.  This  conviction  may  be  arrived  at  in  very 
different  ways.  It  may  be  a  spontaneous  state  of  the 
mind  itself,  which  is  not  capable  of  being  analyzed,  and 
for  which  no  logical  reason  can  bfe  assigned.  It  may  be 
the  result  of  a  mathematical  calculation  or  demonstration 
which  leaves  no  room  for  doubt.  Or  it  may  be  based 
solely  upon  the  testimony  of  others.  Tlius  we  know  at 
last  the  long-sought,  much-disputed  sources  of  the  Nile 
and  the  Congo.  We  know  from  Livingstone,  Cameron, 
and  Stanley,  that  the  continent  of  Africa  can  be  crossed 
from  coast  to  coast,  and  also  to  what  extent  Africa  is  in- 
habited. From  the  scientific  reports  of  the  voyage  of  the 
Challenger,  we  already  know  much  of  the  form  and  char- 
acter of  the  bed  of  the  Atlantic.  We  are  fast  reducing 
the  physical  geography  of  the  globe  to  certainty,  but  we 
do  not  yet  know  whether  the  North  Pole  is  surrounded 
by  an  open  sea  or  an  impenetrable  barrier  of  ice.  The 
testimony  of  explorers  is  conflicting,  and  though  Nares 
has  pronounced  the  Pole  inaccessible,  new  expeditions 
are  organizing  a  final  attack  upon  this  hitherto  unyield- 
ing mystery.  Whatever  knowledge  explorers  shall  gain 
by  observation  and  experience  will  become  the  common 
property  of  mankind  through  their  testimony,  which  will 
be  accepted  as  a  sufficient  basis  of  certainty.  The  dif- 
ference between  observation  and  testimony  lies  not  in 
the  degree  of  conviction,  but  in  the  mode  by  which  it  is 
attained.  The  conviction  of  certainty  is  perhaps  more 
commonly  derived  from  observation  and  experience,  and 
some  physicists  would  limit  the  term  knowledge  abso- 
lutely to  that  which  is  gained  through  the  experience  of 


MORAL   CERTAINTY.  197 

physical  phenomena.  But  the  nice  distinction  of  Kant 
is  here  of  much  importance.  "  Admitting  that  all  our 
knowledge  begins  with  experience,  it  does  not  follow  that 
all  knowledge  likewise  arises  out  0/ experience."  ^ 

Knowledge  is  the  assurance  of  cei'tainty^  without  regard 
to  the  way  in  which  this  assurance  is  attained.  This  as- 
surance may  be  premature,  excessive,  or  even  altogether 
mistaken,  having  no  warrant  in  fact,  and  no  adequate 
ground  in  reason.  Nevertheless,  as  regards  the  concep- 
tion of  reality  and  the  ground  of  action,  this  conviction 
of  certainty  gives  to  him  who  possesses  it  the  confidence 
of  knowledge.  Where  the  conviction  of  certainty  con- 
cerning a  fact  or  truth  is  common  to  the  mass  of  man- 
kind, then  such  fact  or  truth  becomes  an  article  of  uni- 
versal knowledge. 

Though  we  use  the  term  moral  certainty  to  denote  the 
highest  degree  of  probability,  yet,  strictly  speaking,  cer- 
tainty expresses  a  fact  or  truth  established  beyond  ques- 
tion. ^^Probability  and  certainty  are  two  states  of  mind, 
and  not  two  modes  of  the  reality.  The  reality  is  one  and 
the  same,  but  our  knowledge  of  it  may  be  probable  or 
certain.  Probability  has  more  or  less  of  doubt,  and  ad- 
mits of  degrees.  Certainty  excludes  doubt,  and  admits 
neither  of  increase  nor  diminution."  ^  But  knowledge, 
which  begins  in  the  conviction  of  certaint}',  may  be  in- 
creased or  modified  through  familiarity  with  the  ol)ject, 
and  in  matters  of  detail  without  affecting  the  basis  of 
certainty.  Suppose  a  Londoner  has  for  years  resided  in 
Berlin.  Before  going  there  he  had  the  conviction  of  cer- 
tainty of  the  existence  of  such  a  cit}^  otherwise  he  would 
not  have  gone.  A  residence  of  years  has  modified  his 
notions  of  Berlin  in  some  things  and  enlarged  them  in 
others  ;  but  it  has  not  strengthened  by  one  iota  his  pre- 

^  Kritik  der  re'inen  Vernuft.  —  Einleitung,  i. 
2  Fleming,  Vocabulary  of  Pkilosoplvj. 


198  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

vious  conviction  of  the  certainty  that  there  is  such  a 
place.  In  matters  of  detail  he  may  now  know  Berlin 
better  than  he  knows  the  London  of  to-day,  with  its 
rapid  changes.  Indeed,  after  a  few  years  lie  might  not 
know  London  in  such  particulars  ;  yet  he  could  never 
lose  his  conviction  of  the  certainty  that  London  exists. 
The  degrees  of  which  knowledge  admits  without  disturb- 
ing the  fundamental  conviction  of  certainty  are  neatly 
expressed  in  German  by  the  terms  Kenntniss  and  ^r- 
Icenntniss.  Kenntniss  is  the  simple,  obvious  knowledge 
of  an  object  as  such  ;  Er-kenntniss  is  the  discerning,  dis- 
criminating, qualifying  knowledge,  in  which  the  object, 
through  characteristics  and  details,  is  distinguished  from 
others,  and  fixed  in  the  scale  of  knowledge  in  a  position 
of  its  own.  Kenntniss  can  be  communicated  as  a  matter 
of  fact  or  of  information  :  but  Er-kenntniss  is  always  the 
product  of  one's  own  mental  activity.  Hence  they  who 
would  limit  knowledge  to  that  which  the  mind  becomes 
assured  of  through  the  observation  of  nature  would  de- 
prive knowledge  itself  of  that  higher  assurance  which 
comes  of  the  criticism  of  facts,  phenomena,  impressions, 
in  the  crucible  of  thought. 

"  Though  the  phenomena  of  nature  are  all  consistent  with  each 
other,  we  have  to  deal  not  only  witli  these,  but  with  the  hypoth- 
eses which  have  been  invented  to  systematize  them  ;  and  it  hy 
no  means  follows  that  because  one  set  of  observers  have  labored 
with  all  sincerity  to  reduce  to  order  one  group  of  phenomena, 
the  hypotheses  which  they  have  formed  will  be  consistent  with 
those  by  which  a  second  set  of  observers  have  exphiined  a  dif- 
ferent set  of  phenomena.  Hence  the  operation  of  fusing  two 
sciences  into  one  generally  involves  much  criticism  of  established 
methods,  and  the  explosion  of  many  pieces  of  fancied  knowledge 
which  may  have  been  long  held  in  scientific  reputation."  ^ 

Science  itself  would  be  the   chief  loser  if   physicists 

*  Nature,  vol.  xv.  p.  389.     Article  on  Ilehnholtz. 


KENNTNISS  AND  ER-KENNTNISS.  199 

sboukl  succeed  in  restricting  the  term  knowledge  to  that 
which  is  ascertained  by  observation  of  nature.  However 
extensive  and  minute  may  be  tljo  facts  accumuUited  by 
observation  in  any  given  department  of  nature,  and  how- 
ever valuable  the  knowledge  of  such  facts  may  be  for 
practical  uses  —  as,  for  instance,  the  facts  observed  and 
tabulated  in  meteorology  —  yet  these  serve  only  as  mate- 
rials towards  a  science,  until  they  are  colligated  in  prin- 
ciples or  laws.  But  this  colligation  of  facts  is  the  dis- 
tinctive aim  of  science  ;  till  this  is  accomplished,  the 
observation  of  phenomena  remains  at  the  level  of  empiri- 
cism, and  cannot  claim  the  dignity  of  science.  How 
serious  then  would  be  the  defect,  how  lamentable  the 
failure  of  science,  if  the  principles  and  laws  under  which 
its  recorded  observations  are  finally  colligated  could  not 
command  that  assurance  of  certainty  which  is  the  first 
rudiment  of  knowledge.  And  of  what  avail  would  be 
all  the  knowledges  (^Kenntnisse)  derived  from  outward 
phenomena,  if  these  could  not  be  compared,  sifted,  classi- 
fied, and  finally  elevated  into  that  higher  appreciative 
knowledge  (^Er-kenntniss)  which  is  a  possession  of  the 
mind  itself  ? 

This  region  of  Er-kenntniss  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  rec- 
ognizes as  the  proper  home  of  science.  "  Science  is  sim- 
ply a  higher  development  of  common  knowledge."  But 
development  is  more  than  observation  or  experiment, 
more  than  the  accumulation  and  classification  of  facts, 
more  than  the  sensible  impressions  received  from  external 
nature.  It  is  a  product  of  the  self-activity  of  the  mind, 
sifting,  eliminating,  combining  the  knowledges  which  are 
conveyed  to  it  by  observation.  Hence,  as  Herbert  Spen- 
cer further  says,  "  the  sciences  severally  germinate  out 
of  the  experiences  of  daily  life ;  insensibly  as  they  grow 
they  draw  in  remoter,  more  numerous,  and  more  complex 
experiences  ;  and  among  these  they  ascertain  laws  of  de- 


200  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

pendence  like  those  which  make  up  our  knowledge  of  the 
most  familiar  objects."  ^  Now  these  "  laws  of  depend- 
ence "  in  spheres  remote  from  physical  inspection  are  in- 
tellectual conceptions,  by  which  the  mind  seeks  to  clas- 
sify and  to  account  for  phenomena  brought  to  notice  or 
suggested  by  experience.  But  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  claim  for  these,  when  duly  tested,  the  same  convic- 
tion of  certainty  that  comes  of  the  testimony  of  the  senses. 

"  As  certainly  as  the  perception  of  an  object  lying  in  our  path 
warns  us  against  stumbling  over  it,  so  certainly  do  these  more 
complicated  and  subtle  perceptions,  which  constitute  science, 
warn  us  against  stumbling  over  intervening  obstacles  in  the  pur- 
suit of  our  distant  ends.  Thus,  being  one  in  origin  and  func- 
tion, the  simplest  forms  of  cognition  and  the  most  complex  must 
be  dealt  with  alike."  '■^ 

Now  it  were  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  this  higher 
knowledge,  this  complex  conception,  is  the  apex  of  a 
pyramid,  to  which  one  mounts  by  successive  layers  of 
solid  facts.  Quite  commonly  the  conception  is  first 
formed  as  an  image  within  the  mind  itself  —  it  is  a  crea- 
tion of  the  imagination  in  the  higher  regions  of  abstract 
thought,  which  is  then  tested  by  observation  or  by  math- 
ematical calculation,  and  thus  the  conception  grows  to 
the  assurance  of  certainty  ;  —  the  apex  of  the  pyramid 
being  at  first  the  shapely  scaffolding  which  imagina- 
tion has  framed  to  be  filled  up  with  materials  gathered 
from  the  wide  regions  of  observation,  and  which  can  only 
be  brought  into  one  orderly,  harmonious,  and  enduring 
structure  because  the  scaffolding  is  there.  Indeed,  as  in 
the  science  of  pure  mathematics,  the  structure  reared 
within  the  mind  —  which  has  no  corresponding  reality 
in  the  outward  world  of  physics  —  may  be  more  sure, 

*  First  Principles  of  a  New  System  of  Philosophy.  By  Herbert 
Spencer.     Part  i.  chap.  1. 

*  Ibid. 


MATHEMATICAL   CERTAINTY.  201 

exact,  and  permanent  than  a  pyramid  of  stone.  If,  as 
some  suppose,  the  great  pyramid  was  designed  to  furnish 
a  standard  of  lineal  measure  and  of  tiie  heavenly  motions, 
not  even  this  huge  mass  of  stone,  that  lias  outlasted  so 
many  ages,  dynasties,  and  peoples,  can  give  a  conviction 
of  certainty  to  be  compared  with  that  ideal  structure  of 
mathematics  by  which  it  is  shaped  and  built.  In  this 
case  it  is  the  pyramid  which  is  the  phenomenal  appear- 
ance, the  mental  ideal  which  is  the  substantial  reality. 

In  his  anxiety  to  secure  a  scientific  basis  for  philoso- 
phy, Avenarius  makes  the  concession  that  "  the  objects 
which  should  form  the  contents  of  a  science  must  be  ac- 
tually given  by  experience.  Otherwise  one  has  to  do  with 
merely  phantom  objects  and  a  phantom  science."  ^  But 
in  fact  this  is  often  reversed,  and  the  physical  appearance 
is  the  phantom,  while  the  spiritual  ci'eation,  though  this 
may  be  purely  a  thing  of  the  imagination,  produces  the 
impression  and  power  of  reality.  One  sees  this,  for  ex- 
ample, in  Shakespeare's  "  Hamlet,"  a  spiritual  creation 
so  fine,  so  lofty,  so  subtile,  that  not  even  the  classic  rep- 
resentations of  Booth,  Irving,  Salvini,  or  Ludwig,  can 
give  to  it  that  effect  of  reality  which  the  scholar  feels  as 
he  reads  the  play  meditatively  in  his  library.  No  man 
of  culture  can  read  alone  the  ghost-scene,  especially  at 
"  the  witching  time  of  night,"  and  not  feel  a  mysterious 
super-sensible  power  taking  hold  of  his  inmost  being, 
shaking  his  science  and  his  skepticism,  and  producing  a 
momentary  conviction  of  the  reality  of  a  spirit-world. 
But  the  attempt  to  realize  that  scene  upon  the  stage 
scatters  this  momentary  allegiance  to  a  spirit-power,  and 
makes  him  feel  that  the  supernatural  is  a  delusion.  Here 
it  is  the  physical  apparition,  the  thing  of  observation,  the 
ghost  seen  and  heard,  that  is  felt  to  be  an  unreality,  an 
invention,  a  Schein,  a  sham.     This  is  the  sole  point  of 

^   Vierieljdhrsschrijl  fur  wissenscTiaflliche  Philosophie,  vol.  i.  p.  6. 


202  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

this  illustration.  It  would  be  absurd  to  assert  the  ap 
pearance  of  ghosts  as  an  article  of  knowledge,  or  even  to 
rest  the  existence  of  disembodied  spirits  upon  so  slender 
a  basis  as  the  felt  presence  of  the  supersensible  which  is 
awakened  by  the  creation  of  the  dramatist,  tliough  the 
native  susceptibility  of  the  mind  to  such  conceptions  is 
an  argument  for  some  corresponding  reality  in  the  un- 
seen universe.  The  witch  of  Endor  may  have  been  a 
clever  sorceress,  the  •'  weird  sisters  "  of  the  heath  expert 
jugglers.  With  mirrors  and  chemicals  we  may  be  able 
to  reproduce  their  spectres;  yet  after  we  have  suborned 
science  to  a  masquerade,  that  she  may  tear  off  the  mask 
of  sorcery,  it  still  remains  that  we  hear  the  voice  of  Sam- 
uel and  see  the  smile  of  Banquo  behind  the  scenes.  We 
have  dispelled  the  ocular  illusion,  but  there  remains  a 
suggestion  of  reality  in  that  which  is  invisible.  This  ex- 
perience, familiar  to  minds  accustomed  to  introspection, 
reverses  the  distinction  which  some  physicists  would 
draw  between  images  of  the  mind  as  phantoms,  and 
physical  phenomena  as  realities.  Sometimes  the  physi- 
cal appearance  may  be  scattered  as  a  phantom,  while  the 
mental  image  makes  an  abiding  impression  of  reality  — 
the  "airy  nothing"  takes  on  "a  local  habitation  and  a 
name."  To  return,  for  a  moment,  to  mathematics.  This 
field-marshal  of  the  sciences,  which  prescribes  to  each 
particular  science  its  laws  of  organization  and  its  grade 
in  the  general  system  of  knowledge,  wields  an  impalpa- 
ble wand  of  theory.  Itself  the  most  exact  and  certain  of 
all  the  sciences,  and  supplying  to  the  physical  sciences 
forms,  measures,  quantities,  equations,  formulas ;  yet 
mathematics  is  not  built  upon  the  observation  and  induc- 
tion of  physical  facts,  but  springs  from  that"  spontaneity 
of  initiative  "  which  is  the  creative  faculty  of  the  mind. 
What  is  the  differential  and  integral  calculus  but  a 
pure  invention  of   this  creative  power  for  gauging   the 


THE  TRUTH  OF  MATHEMATICAL  ABSTRACTIONS.  203 

physical  universe  and  caging  this  within  the  immatorial 
but  invincible  barriers  of  abstract  thoiifriit?  An  acknowl- 
edged  master  in  the  science  of  mathematics,  the  discov- 
erer of  the  "  Dialytic  Method  of  Elimination,"*  says  of 
the  algebraical  forms  called  qualities  :  ♦'  These  are  not 
properly  speaking  geometrical  forms,  although  capable 
of  being  embodied  in  them,  but  rather  schemes  of  pro- 
cesses and  of  operations  for  forming,  for  calling  into  ex- 
istence, as  it  were,  algebraic  quantities."  Here  is  a  most 
subtile  abstraction.  The  algebraic  *'  quantity  "  itself  may 
be  purely  imaginary,  but  behind  this  is  conjured  up  the 
quantic,  the  merest  shadow  of  a  shade,  and  this  quantic 
is  conceived  of  as  capable  of  calling  quantities  into  exist- 
ence. Yet  upon  such  unsubstantial  forms  as  these  the 
mind  can  rest  in  the  assurance  of  certainty  at  every  step  ; 
"with  these  it  can  weigh  and  measure  the  solid  globe  ;  by 
these  it  can  mount  to  the  stars.  To  this  abstract  knowl- 
edge external  nature  must  conform, "  complementing  and 
substantiating  theory  by  visible  and  palpable  experience." 
The  mathematician,  says  Sylvester,  "  has  to  train  and  in- 
ure himself  to  a  habit  of  internal  and  impersonal  reflec- 
tion and  elaboration  of  abstract  thought."  But  it  is  in 
this  region  of  abstractions,  and  not  in  the  outer  physical 
world,  that  the  mathematician  finds  his  certainties  ;  and 
back  of  all  his  knowledges,  and  the  most  sure  of  all,  lies 
his  thought-power.  For  the  one  thing  that  every  man 
knows  with  the  conviction  of  absolute  certainty  (and  pos- 
sibly the  only  thing  he  does  absolutely  knoiv  .^)  is  liimself 
asknower.  It'  one  does  not  know  this,  he  cannot  know  any- 
thing ;  and  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  one  can  know 
anything  else  with  the  same  absolute  certainty  with  which 
he  knows  that  he  is.  No  amount  of  negation  can  impair 
this  certainty.  Augustine  has  pointed  out  the  self-con- 
tradiction of  a  universal  skepticism,  in  that  "  he  who 
^  Profesfor  Sylvester,  of  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Baltimore. 


204  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

doubts  is  certain  that  he  doubts."  And  Thomas  Aquinas, 
with  diacritical  nicety,  has  said,  "  He  who  denies  that 
truth  is,  at  the  same  time  concedes  that  truth  is  ;  since, 
if  truth  is  not,  it  is  true  that  truth  is  not,"  ^  Only  by 
confidence  in  himself  as  knower  can  one  know  any  object 
outside  of  himself.  "  The  light  by  which  we  see  in  this 
world  comes  out  from  the  soul  of  the  observer.  Nay, 
the  powers  of  this  busy  brain  are  miraculous  and  illimit- 
able. Therein  are  the  rules  and  formulas  by  which  the 
whole  empire  of  matter  is  worked."  ^  The  Ego,  which 
is  consciousness  come  to  itself ^  is  the  one  fundamental  fact 
of  universal  knowledge.  What  consciousness  is  and 
whence  it  arises,  what  the  Ego  is  and  how  recognized 
and  defined,  are  questions  beyond  the  scope  of  the  pres- 
ent article.  We  introduce  the  Ego  here  with  reference 
simply  to  the  definition  of  knowledge,  and  thus  of  science. 
It  might  be,  as  Spinoza  taught,  that  "  the  object  of  that 
idea  which  constitutes  the  human  mind,  is  body  —  that 
is,  a  certain  mode  of  extension  existing  in  reality  —  and 
nothing  else  ;  "  ^  and  that  "  the  mind  does  not  know  it- 
self except  in  so  far  as  it  perceives  ideas  of  affections  of 
the  body  "  *  (so  finely  did  the  great  Dutch  philosopher 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  by  pure  metaphysical  ab- 
straction, anticipate  the  Darwinian  theory  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  consciousness  by  cerebral  excitation  through  the 
instrumentality  of  the  «Bensorium).  Or  it  might  be,  as 
Kant  held,  that  the  Ego  (^IcK)  "  cannot  even  be  called  a 

*  "Etiam  qui  negat  veritatem  esse,  concedit  veritatem  esse;  si 
enim  Veritas  non  est,  veruiu  est  veritatem  non  esse."  —  Thomas 
Aquinas,  Sum.  Theol. 

^  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  Success. 

*  "  Objcctum  idesE  humanam  mentem  constituentis,  est  corpus,  sive 
certus  extensionis  modus,  actu  existens,  et  nihil  aliud." — ii^A.  ii. 
prop.  13. 

*  "  Mens  se  ipsam  non  cognoscit,  nisi  quat^nus  corporis  affectionum 
ideas  percipit."  —  Eth.  ii.  prop.  23. 


SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  205 

conception,  but  is  merely  the  consciousness  which  accom- 
panies all  conceptions  —  a  simple  representation  which 
in  itself  is  totally  void  of  contents ;  "  ^  or,  as  he  other- 
wise puts  it,  the  pure,  original,  unchangeable  self-con- 
sciousness, that  is  the  Ego,  is  simply  a  "  transcendental 
apperception "  which  does  not  carry  within  itself  the 
conception  of  a  distinct  substance,  or  self-substantiality. 
This  "  transcendental  unity  of  self-consciousness,"  Hegel 
illustrates  by  an  analogy  from  mathematics  :  — 

"  In  geometry  you  are  told  to  conceive  the  circumference  of  a 
circle  as  formed  of  au  infinite  number  of  infinitely  small 
straight  lines.  In  other  words,  characteristics  which  the  un- 
derstanding holds  to  be  totally  different,  the  straight  line  and 
the  curve,  are  expressly  declared  to  be  identical.  Another 
transcendent  of  the  same  kind  is  the  self-consciousness,  which  is 
identical  with  itself,  and  infinite  in  itself,  as  distinguished  from 
the  ordinary  consciousness  which  derives  its  character  from 
finite  materials.  That  unity  of  self-consciousness,  however, 
Kant  calls  transcendental  only  ;  and  he  meant  thereby  that  the 
unity  was  only  in  our  minds,  and  did  not  attach  to  the  objects 
apart  from  our  knowledge  of  them."  - 

Again  ;  in  direct  opposition  to  the  view  of  Kant  that 
the  Ego  represents  pure  apperception  with  no  content  of 
real  conception,  it  might  be,  as  Hegel  maintains,  that  "  in 
the  Ego  there  is  a  variety  of  contents,  derived  both  from 
within  and  from  without,  and  according  to  the  nature  of 
these  contents  our  state  may  be  described  as  perception, 
or  conception,  or  reminiscence.  .  .  .  /  is  the  vacuum  or 
receptacle  for  anything  and  everything  ;  for  which  every- 
thing is,  and  which  stores  up  everything  in  itself."  ^ 

1  "  Von  (ler  Paralogismen  der  reinen  Vernunft ;  erstes  Hauptstiick 
des  zweiten  Buchs  der  transcendentalen  Dialektik."     ' 

^  Encyclopddie  den  ph'dosophischen  Wissenschaflen,  ^  A2.  See  the 
translation  of  Mr.  Wallace,  The  Logic  of  Hegel,  p.  75. 

'  Wallace,  The  Logic  of  Hegel,  p.  40. 


206  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

Or  the  Ego  might  be  presented  in  the  abstract  concept 
of  Lotze :  — 

"  Selfhood,  the  substance  of  all  personality,  does  not  rest  upon 
a  contrast,  completed  or  in  process,  of  the  Ego  with  a  non-Ego, 
but  consists  in  au  immediate  being-in-and-of-itself  {Fursichsein) 
which  conversely  forms  the  ground  of  the  possibility  of  that 
contrast,  at  the  point  where  itself  emerges.  Self-consciousness 
is  tlie  actualization  of  this  being-in-and-of-itself  through  the  me- 
dium of  conception,  and  this  also  is  in  no  way  necessarily  de- 
pendent upon  the  discrimination  of  the  Ego  from  a  substantial 
non-Ego  set  over  against  it."  ^ 

And  still  further ;  the  very  opposite  extreme  of  cer- 
tain physiologists  might  be  accepted,  which  represents 
the  Ego  to  be  nothing  more  than  a  succession  of  impres- 
sions upon  the  brain,  or  an  on-going  chain  of  sensations. 

But  whichever  of  these  views,  or  whatever  modifi- 
cation or  combination  of  them  be  taken  for  true,  they 
all  are  comprehended  within  the  brief  formula  —  The 
Ego  is  consciousness  come  to  itself.  If  the  Ego  be 
an  immediate,  intuitive  conception,  emerging  from  that 
vague  background  which  some  writers  call  «M6-consciou3- 
ness,  then  in  this  self-recognition  consciousness  comes  to 
itself,  as  one  awaking  from  a  swoon  is  said  to  come  to 
himself.  If  the  Ego  is  simply  a  feeling  or  sensation,  or 
a  chain  of  impressions,  then,  as  the  point  at  which  the 
spark  fliiahes  makes  visible  the  electricity  engendered  in 
a  whole  battery  of  Leyden  jars,  so  the  Ego  is  the  point 
of  manifestation  at  which  the  feeling  or  impression  cul- 
minates in  consciousness  come  to  itself.  And  so  of  all 
intermediate  stages  in  the  definition  of  the  Ego.  It  has 
been  remarked  of  the  child,  that  in  the  earlier  manifes- 
tations of  consciousness  he  speaks  of  himself  in  the  third 
person  —  possibly  in  imitation  of  the  mother  and  nurse, 
who  always  speak  to  him  in  the  third  person  (What  ails 
^  Hermann  Lotze,  Mikrokosmus,  vol.  iii.  p.  575. 


PERSONALITY.  207 

baby  ?  What  will  Charlie  have  ?)  ;  but  of  a  sudden  he 
comes  to  himself ^  and  says  /  think,  /  feel.  Consciousness 
has  evolved  itself  as  Ego. 

The  Germans  have  a  neat  expression  for  the  clearing 
up  of  consciousness  through  the  certainty  of  conviction. 
Ich  binjetz  mit  mir  im  Reinen  —  "  At  last  I  have  cleared 
up  myself  to  myself  ;  "  like  Milton's  —  "  The  mind 
through  all  her  powers  irradiate  ;  all  mist  from  thence 
purge  and  disperse."  But  Jevons  goes  even  further, 
and  maintains  that  certainty  can  be  predicted  only  of  an 
actual  present  consciousness  and  of  a  correct  logical  infer 
ence  ;  that  is,  of  certain  states  and  acts  of  the  Ego. 

"  We  can  never  recur  too  often  to  the  truth  that  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  laws  and  future  events  of  the  external  world  is  only 
probable.  The  mind  itself  is  quite  capable  of  possessing  certain 
knowledge,  and  it  is  well,  to  discriminate  carefully  between  wliat 
we  can  and  cannot  know  with  certainty.  In  the  first  place, 
whatever  feeling  is  actually  present  to  the  mind  is  certainly 
known  to  that  mind.  If  I  see  blue  sky,  I  may  be  quite  sure 
that  I  do  experience  the  sensation  of  blueness.  Whatever  I  do 
feel,  I  do  feel  beyond  all  doubt.  We  are,  indeed,  very  likely  to 
confuse  what  we  really  feel  with  what  we  are  inclined  to  associ- 
ate with  it,  or  infer  inductively  from  it ;  but  the  whole  of  our 
consciousness,  as  far  as  it  is  the  result  of  pure  intuition  and  free 
from  inference,  is  certain  knowledge  beyond  all  doubt."  ^ 

It  is  sufficient  to  our  present  purpose  that  the  Ego  is 
(1)  a  fact  of  absolute  knowledge  ;  (2)  a  fact  of  univer- 
sal knowledge  ;  (3)  not  a  fact  of  physical  experience. 

1.  That  the  Eijo  is  a  fact  of  absolute  knowledge  re- 
quires  no  proof  and  indeed  admits  of  none.  There  is 
nothing  that  a  man  asserts  with  such  absolute  certainty 
as  the  fact  that  he  zs,  he  knotvs,  he  feels^  he  thinks,  he 
wills.     And,  indeed,  if  one  should  take  it  upon  him  to 

^  Principles  of  Science.  By  W.  Stanley  Jevons.  Second  edition, 
chap.  xi.  p.  235. 


208  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

deny  consciousness  of  the  Ego,  the  more  stoutly  he  should 
deny  himself  the  more  vehemently  would  he  invoke  us 
to  believe  in  him  and  in  his  denials.  "  I  who  speak  to 
you  am  conscious  that  I  have  no  consciousness  of  being 
I!" 

2.  That  the  Ugo  is  a  fact  of  universal  knowledge  — 
that  every  other  man  has  the  consciousness  of  the  Ego  as 
truly  as  I  have,  —  is  plain  (a)  from  language.  Every 
language  has  some  term  or  terras  to  represent  I  and  me^ 
he  and  him.  "  Now  language  is  the  work  of  thought, 
and  hence  all  that  is  expressed  in  language  must  be  uni- 
versal." ^  (i)  From  the  notion  of  possession.  In  every 
human  being  there  exists  the  notion  that  something  be- 
longs to  him  in  distinction  from  all  others.  In  asserting 
the  right  of  property,  he  asserts  the  consciousness  of  the 
Ego.  (c)  From  history  and  tradition.  Among  all  peo- 
ples there  exist  in  history  or  tradition  names  of  heroes, 
sages,  poets,  kings,  that  represent  individuals,  persons  ; 
and  the  history  or  tradition  becomes  nothing  if  stripped 
of  that  conception.  Indeed,  so  universal  is  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  Ego,  that  mankind  clothe  even  myths  with 
personality,  to  give  them  character  or  force.  No  amount 
of  historical  criticism  will  ever  destroy  men's  faith  in  the 
personality  of  Homer,  Romulus  and  Remus,  King  Arthur, 
William  Tell.  Having  resolved  the  man  into  a  myth, 
we  at  once  make  the  myth  a  person,  an  Ego  to  tlie  imag- 
ination. (cZ)  The  universal  conviction  of  the  Ego  is 
shown  by  laws  and  penalties.  These  are  enacted  because 
in  every  case  of  crime  or  wrong  the  human  mind  directly 
ascribes  the  act  to  a  person  as  the  wrong-doer  ;  and  he  in 
distinction  from  all  physical  things  and  from  all  other 
persons  is  to  be  held  accountable,  because  he  is  a  con- 
scious Ego.  If  he  is  shown  to  be  an  idiot  or  insane,  then 
the  criminality  of  his  action  is  lost  in  the  clouding  of  the 
Ego  as  to  the  character  of  the  act. 

^  Logic  of  Hegel,  p.  32. 


NATURE  OF  THE  EGO.  209 

3.  The  Ego  is  not  a  fact  of  pliysical  experience. 
Though  physical  experiences  may  lead  up  to  it,  though 
the  Ego  may  be  the  flash  of  electric  light  from  the  chain 
of  sensations,  yet  it  is  not  itself  a  sensation.  The  Ef'o  is 
conscious  of  the  physical  experiences  as  hu  experiences. 
This  is  equally  true  whether  the  non-Ego  is  given  in  the 
same  instant  and  in  the  same  mode  with  the  Ego,  or  the 
Ego  is  discriminated  from  the  non-Ego  by  a  process  of 
reflective  analysis,  or  the  Ego  becomes  directly  conscious 
of  the  non-Ego  as  distinct  from  itself. 

We  have  seen  that  the  one  fact  of  knowledge  which 
is  absolute,  fundamental,  and  universal,  the  knowledge 
which  must  attend  all  other  knowledges,  and  without 
which  there  could  be  no  other,  —  this  consciousness  of  the 
Ego  as  a  knower^  —  is  not,  either  as  to  its  nature  or  as  to 
its  origin,  knowledge  in  the  sense  to  which  a  recent 
school  of  physicists  would  limit  that  term.  Hence  the 
oppugnation  between  science  and  philosophy,  or  science 
and  religion,  if  any  there  be,  cannot  lie  in  the  distinction 
between  knowledge  and  opinion  or  belief.  Neither  are 
the  terms  science  —  in  the  sense  of  exact  science  or  of 
physical  science  —  and  knowledge  strictly  interchange- 
able. 

We  are  now  prepared  for  a  nearer  view  of  the  contents 
of  the  terra  science.  Knowledge  is  the  conviction  of  cer- 
tainty. The  Ego  is  that  —  be  it  person,  substance,  mode, 
fact,  condition,  manifestation,  result,  or  what  not —  that 
in  which  this  conviction  of  certainty  is  given,  felt,  record- 
ed. Sensations  are  not  knowledge ;  these  may  be  tenta- 
tive, deceptive,  even  negative.  Sensations  are  the  media 
through  which  the  Ego  receives  impressions  of  the  outer 
world.  The  Ego  being  conscious  of  sensations,  through 
these  sensations  is  cognizant  of  external  phenomena  ;  and 
by  weighing,  analyzing,  comparing,  combining  these  im- 
pressions and  experiences,  it  attains  to  that  conviction  of 

14 


210  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

certainty  which,  in  respect  of  the  outer  world  or  nature, 
is  the  scientific  equivalent  for  fact  or  knowledge.  Hence 
Whewell  has  laid  down  these  aphorisms  as  preliminary 
to  a  definition  of  science. 

"  1.  The  senses  place  before  us  the  characters  of  the 
hook  of  nature  ;  but  these  convey  no  knowledge  to  us  till 
we  have  discovered  the  alphabet  by  which  they  are  to  be 
read. 

"  2.  TJie  alphabet,  by  means  of  which  we  interpret  phe- 
nomena^ consists  of  the  ideas  existing  in  our  own  minds  ; 
for  these  give  to  the  phenomena  that  coherence  and  signifi- 
cance ivhich  is  not  an  object  of  sense. 

"  3.  The  two  processes  by  which  science  is  constructed 
are  the  explication  of  conceptions,  and  the  colligation  of 
facts. 

"  Knowledge  requires  us  to  possess  both  facts  and  ideas.  Every 
step  in  our  knowledge  consists  in  applying  the  ideas  and  coucep- 
tions  furnished  by  our  minds  to  the  facts  which  observation  and 
experiment  offer  to  us.  When  our  conceptions  are  clear  and 
distinct,  when  our  facts  are  certain  and  sufficiently  numerous, 
and  when  the  conceptions,  being  suited  to  the  nature  of  the  facts, 
are  applied  to  them  so  as  to  produce  an  exact  and  universal  ac- 
cordance, we  attain  knowledge  of  a  precise  and  comprehensive 
kind,  which  we  may  term  science."  ^ 

Such  is  the  testimony  of  a  master  in  physics  to  the 
oflBce  of  the  ideal  in  conception  in  bringing  into  scientific 
order  that  which  lies  in  consciousness  as  matter  of  expe- 
rience. Also,  from  the  purely  philosophical  side,  Hegel 
found  the  union  of  reflection  with  experience  essential  to 
the  construction  of  a  science.  In  the  introduction  to  his 
"  Encyclopaedia  of  the  Philosophical  Sciences,"  Hegel  de- 
fines  philosophy  as    "  a   peculiar  mode  of   thought  —  a 

^  Novum  Organon  Renovatum,  pp.  5,  27.  In  selecting  these  aph- 
orisms, we  have  changed  the  numerical  order  of  Dr.  Whewell,  for 
the  sake  of  convenience  of  arrangement. 


HEGEL'S  DEFINITION  OF  PHILOSOPHY.        211 

mode  through  which  thought  becomes  discriminating  and 
comprehensive  knowledge."  In  other  words,  philosophic 
thought  is  reflective  and  speculative  thinking.  In  science 
this  reflective  and  speculative  thought  is  employed  in  in- 
vestigating the  facts  of  experience  and  in  evolving  the 
laws  which  these  suggest. 

"  The  principle  of  experience  involves  the  infinitely  weighty 
condition  ^  that  in  order  to  take  in  a  subject-matter  and  hold  this 
for  true,  the  man  himself  must  be  in  contact  with  it :  more  pre- 
cisely, he  must  find  such  subject-matter  in  union  and  combina- 
tion with  the  certainty  of  his  own  self.  lie  must  himself  be  in 
contact  with  it,  be  it  only  by  his  outward  senses,  or  rather  with 
his  deeper  spirit —  his  essential  self-consciousness."  '^ 

Hence  Hegel  would  assert  for  speculative  philosophy 
the  maxim,  Nihil  est  in  sensu  quod  non  fuerit  in  intel- 
lectu  —  the  converse  of  sensationalism.  This  is  true  in 
the  meaning  that  nothing  outward  can  have  reality  for  us 
till  it  is  attested  in  consciousness  and  shaped  in  thought. 
Though  we  may  not  give  existence  to  the  outer  world, 
nor  even  preconceive  it  as  to  its  constituents,  yet  nothing 
can  be  known  to  us  as  existing  in  sense  until  we  have 
somehow  shaped  it  as  reality  in  our  minds.  "  No  less 
than  empiricism,  philosophy  only  recognizes  what  is,  hav- 
ing nothing  to  do  with  what  merely  ought  to  be,  and 
what  is  thus  confessed  not  to  exist.  .  .  .  Empiricism  la- 
bors under  a  delusion  if  it  supposes  that  while  analyzing 
the  objects,  it  leaves  them  as  they  were  :  it  really  trans- 
forms the  concrete  into  an  abstract."  ^  Thus  science 
must  use  the  materials  and  methods  of  philosophy  in  the 
very  attempt  to  build  up  a  barrier  between  itself  and 
philosophy.     We  must  see  if  we  cannot  help  science  to  a 

^  Beslimmung=deierminatio,  constitulio  —  that  which  is  fixed  or 
defined  in  the  nature  of  the  subject ;  hence,  a  requisite  condition. 

2  Huf^ii],  Encyclopcedia,  Einleitung,  57. 

3  Encydopcedia,  p.  538.     See  Wallace,  Logic  of  Hegel^  p.  65. 


212  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

better  standing-place  —  to  a  truer  knowledge  of  herself 
and  her  means  of  knowing.  In  mind  alone  can  be  had 
that  conviction  of  certainty  which  is  the  assurance  of 
knowledge ;  by  mind,  the  objective  facts  of  nature,  as  as- 
certained through  the  senses,  must  be  tested  and  set  in 
order  ;  and  the  master-architect  is  the  Ego. 

Some  of  the  most  liberal  and  advanced  thinkers  in 
physical  science  have  openly  recognized  the  truth  that 
although  science  must  gather  her  materials  from  nature, 
she  must  lay  her  foundations,  not  in  nature  but  in  mind. 
This  homage  of  science  to  mind  was  a  striking  feature  of 
the  fiftieth  meeting  of  the  German  Association  of  Natu- 
ralists and  Physicians,  at  Munich,  in  September,  1877. 
Professor  Haeckel,  who  surpasses  Huxley  in  facility  of 
assumption  and  audacity  of  assertion,  read  a  paper  in 
which  he  assumed  that  evolution  and  the  monistic  philos- 
ophy are  established  in  science,  and  asserted  that  '^  who- 
ever to-day  still  asks  for  proofs  of  the  theory  of  descent 
[i.  e.  the  descent  of  man  from  the  ape],  proves  by  that 
only  his  own  want  of  knowledge  or  reason."  Haeckel  even 
went  so  far  as  to  argue  that  this  doctrine  of  evolution 
should  be  taught  in  the  common  schools  as  a  fixed  branch 
of  knowledge.^  Haeckel,  however,  has  but  small  influ- 
ence in  scientific  circles  in  Germany  ;  and  the  modesty 
of  true  science  appeared  in  the  subsequent  addresses  of 
Professor  C.  von  Nageli,^  of  Munich,  and  Professor  R. 
Virchow,^  of  Berlin,  which  distinctly  recognize  the  reflec- 
tive action  of  mind  in  bringing  within  the  category  of 
knowledges  the  facts  of  nature  observed  by  the  senses. 
Says  Niigeli :  "  The  solution  of  the  question,  In  what  way 

*  Die  heutige  Enttcickelungslehre  im  Verhiiltnisse  zur  GesammtwUsen- 
schaft. 

^  Ueber  die  Grenzen  des  Naturerkennens. 

•  Die  Freiheit  der  Wissenscha/t  im  modernen  Staat.  All  these  ad- 
dresses were  well  translated  in  Nature,  Nos.  414-423. 


NAGELI  ON  MATHEMATICAL   CERTAINTY.      213 

and  how  far  may  I  know  and  understand  nature  ?  is  evi- 
dently determined  by  tlireo  different  things,  namely,  by 
the  answers  to  three  questions :  (1)  The  condition  and 
capacity  of  the  Ego ;  (2)  the  condition  and  accessibility 
of  nature ;  and  (3)  the  demands  which  we  make  of 
knowledge."  He  makes  the  correctness  of  knowledge 
depend  not  merely  upon  the  correctness  of  the  senses  in 
observation,  but  equally  upon  the  fidelity  of  that  finer  in- 
ternal sense  through  the  mediation  of  which  the  mind 
partakes  in  these  observations  of  the  bodily  organs  ;  and 
"  by  conclusions  from  facts  which  were  recognized  by  the 
senses  we  arrive  at  facts  equally  certain,  which  can  no 
longer  be  perceived  by  the  senses."  Having  defined  the 
limitations  of  the  senses  and  of  the  Ego,  Nageli  comes  to 
mathematics  as  the  one  certainty  in  the  domain  of  knowl- 
edge —  a  science, 

"  perfectly  clear  to  us  because  it  is  the  product  of  our  own  mind. 
We  can  understand  real  things  with  certainty,  as  far  as  we  find 
mathematical  ideas,  number,  magnitude,  and  everything  which 
mathematics  deduces  from  these  realized  in  them.  Natural 
knowledge,  therefore,  consists  in  our  applying  mathematical 
methods  to  natural  phenomena.  To  understand  a  natural  event 
means  nothing  else,  as  it  were,  than  to  repeat  it  in  thought,  to 
reproduce  it  in  our  mind." 

Here  is  the  distinct  admission  of  one  of  the  most  care- 
ful physicists  that  our  knowledge  of  nature  is  not  merely 
a  sense  perception,  but  an  innerly-accordant  conception 
(^die  innere  Vermittelung^  of  the  mind  itself.  In  respect 
of  outward  nature,  "  we  can  know  only  the  finite ;  but 
we  can  know  all  the  finite  which  comes  within  reach  of 
our  sensual  perception."  But  on  the  other  hand,  as  Na- 
geli teaches,  "we  know  mental  life  only  from  our  subjec- 
tive experiences."  He  does  not  qualify  the  term  knowl- 
edge in  respect  of  these  inner  experiences,  nor  limit 
knowledge  to  the  objective  world  of  sense.     "  We  know 


214  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

that  we  draw  conclusions,  that  we  remember,  that  we 
feel  pleasure  and  pain."  It  is  this  conscious,  this  know- 
ing Ego,  which  measures  and  compares  the  results  of 
sense-perception,  and  thus  brings  nature  within  the  pur- 
view of  knowledge  —  the  assurance  of  certainty. 

Virchow,  while  adhering  strongly  to  the  objective  side 
of  science,  recognizes  the  utility  of  that  speculative 
method  "which  sets  problems,  and  finds  the  tasks  to 
which  modern  investigation  is  to  be  applied,  and  which 
anticipatively  formulates  a  series  of  doctrines  which  are 
still  to  be  proved,  and  the  truth  of  which  must  yet  be 
found,  but  which  in  the  mean  time  may  be  taught  with 
a  certain  amount  of  probability,  in  order  to  fill  certain 
gaps  in  knowledge."  In  natural  science,  no  less  than  in 
the  church,  Virchow  finds  the  three  phases  which  attach 
themselves  to  all  systems  of  human  knowledge  —  "  ob- 
jective and  subjective  knowledge,  and  the  intermediate 
phase  of  belief. 

Still  more  pronounced  on  this  point  is  Professor  Challis, 
F.  R.  S.,  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  who  says :  — 

"Physical  science,  when  complete,  rests  not  on  experiment 
alone,  but  on  experiment  combined  with  reasoning.  .  .  .  Em- 
pirical philosophy  is  only  a  step  towards  true  and  ultimate  philos- 
ophy,- and  physical  science  is  really  advanced  only  so  far  as  the 
physical  laws  discovered  and  formulated  by  means  of  experi- 
ment are  shown  by  mathematical  reasoning  to  be  consequences 
of  ulterior  intelligible  principles.  The  perfection  of  physical 
science  consists  in  giving  reasons  for  physical  laws."  ^ 

Hence  the  mere  observation  of  nature  cannot  monopolize 
the  term  knowledge,  nor  indeed  claim  to  be,  knowledge 
at  all  until  certified  by  the  scrutiny  of  the  rational  and 
judicial  Ego.  And  this  carries  us  back  to  the  great 
founder  of  physics,  who  believed  equally  in  metaphysics. 

^  Journal  of  the  Transactions  of  the  Victoria  Institute,  vol.  xii.  No. 
45,  pp.  2,  11. 


ARISTOTLE'S  CONCEPTION  OF  SCIENCE.       215 

Aristotle^  made  science  well-nigh  the  equivalent  of 
art  (t€xv»7),  in  which  term  he  included  both  the  method- 
ical handling  of  facts  and  the  theoretical  development  of 
principles  and  causes ;  or  rather,  with  Aristotle,  art  was 
a  stage  intermediate  between  experience  and  the  wisdom 
of  true  science. 

"Experience  is  the  knowledge  of  particulars,  art  is  the 
knowledge  of  the  universal.  The  artist  is  wiser  than  the  mere 
experiencer ;  his  knowledge  stands  nearer  to  wisdom,  because 
he  comprehends  also  the  grounds  or  reasons  of  things,  which 
the  experiencer  does  not.  The  experiencer  knows  only  the 
What,  not  the  Wherefore,  but  the  artist  knows  also  the  Where- 
fore and  the  Cause.  .  .  .  Wisdom  is  the  science  of  certain,  i.  e. 
ascertained,  causes  and  beginnings." 

The  union  of  experience  with  art  in  Aristotle's  meaning 
constitutes  science  according  to  our  modern  idea — the 
knowledge  of  particulars  upon  a  given  subject  acquired 
by  experience,  then  generalized  by  the  art-faculty  of  the 
mind  into  principles  and  laws.  It  remains  for  philosophy, 
the  higher  wisdom,  to  rise  into  the  sphere  of  origin  and 
cause.  "  All  science,"  says  Bluntschli,  "  is  the  work 
and  acquisition  of  individual  mental  labor  —  of  thought. 
The  active  spirit  in  the  individual  man  seeks  and  arrives 
at  truth  by  unfolding  self-consciousness,  by  observing 
carefully  outward  circumstances  and  studying  the  proc- 
esses of  the  mind  itself."  ^  This  is  in  strict  accordance 
with  what  Humboldt  says  in  the  introduction  to  his 
"  Cosmos."  "  Science  does  not  present  itself  to  man  un- 
til mind  conquers  matter  in  striving  to  subject  the  result 
of  experimental  investigation  to  rational  combinations. 
Science  is  the  labor  of  mind  applied  to  nature ;  but  the 
external  world  has  no  real  existence  for  us  beyond  the 

^  Metaphysics,  lib.  i.  c.  1 . 

2  Bluntschli,  Pol'Uik  als  Wissenschaft,  lib.  v.  c.  6 ;  Lehre  von  mad- 
ernen  Staat,  vol.  iii.  p.  263. 


216  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE  f 

image  reflected  within  ourselves  through  the  medium  of 
the  senses."  Humboldt  discriminates  also  between  a 
merely  empirical  knowledge  of  external  nature  and  true 
science,  in  which  observation  is  under  the  constant  scru- 
tiny of  reason. 

"  Empiricism  originates  in  isolated  views,  which  are  subse- 
quently grouped  according  to  their  analogy  or  dissimilarity. 
To  direct  observation  succeeds,  although  long  afterward,  the 
wish  to  prosecute  experiments,  that  is  to  say,  to  evoke  phenom- 
ena under  different  determined  conditions.  The  rational  ex- 
perimentalist does  not  proceed  at  hazard,  but  acts  under  the 
guidance  of  hypotheses  founded  on  a  half  indistinct  and  more  or 
less  just  intuition  of  the  connection  existing  among  natural  ob- 
jects or  forces.  That  which  has  been  conquered  by  observation, 
or  by  means  of  experiments,  leads,  by  analysis  and  induction, 
to  the  discovery  of  empirical  laws." 

Science  can  be  attained  only  "  by  subjecting  isolated  ob- 
servations to  the  process  of  thought;"  and  the  "'Cos- 
mos' is  based  upon  a  rational  empiricism,  that  is  to  say, 
upon  the  results  of  the  facts  registered  by  science,  and 
tested  by  the  operations  of  the  intellect." 

This  comprehensive  view  of  Humboldt  gives  color  to 
the  saying  of  an  eminent  philosophical  naturalist :  "  All 
true  science  of  nature  is  philosophy,  and  all  true  philoso- 
phy is  natural  science."  With  more  exactness  it  may  be 
affirmed  that  science  requires  the  unifying  process  of  phi- 
losophy, and  philosophy  requires  the  scientific  basis  of 
experience  ;  and  if  any  distinction  be  made  between  phi- 
losophy and  science,  it  should  lie  in  the  relative  propor- 
tions in  which  the  two  factors,  speculation  and  experi- 
ence,—  which  are  common  to  both,  —  are  combined  in 
either.  Zeller  goes  further,  and  finds  the  distinction  of 
philosophical  science  from  other  sciences  in  this :  that 
"  every  other  science  has  in  view  the  exploration  of  some 
one  particular  domain,  whereas  philosophy  has  its  eye 


SCIENTIA  SCIENTIARUM.  217 

upon  the  totality  of  existences  aa  a  whole,  strives  to  com- 
prehend the  particular  in  its  relation  to  the  whole  and  to 
the  laws  of  the  whole,  and  thus  to  establish  the  coher- 
ence of  all  knowledge."  ^  But  is  it  not  true  also  of  each 
science  that  it  seeks  to  gather  the  facts  that  lie  within  its 
domain  into  one  systematic  whole,  and  then  to  articulate 
this  unit  of  particular  knowledge  with  that  aggregate  of 
knowledges  which  constitutes  the  universe  ?  And  is  not 
philosophy  rather  the  highest  of  sciences  —  scientia  scien- 
tiarum  —  in  that  whereas  a  science  concerns  itself  with 
investigating  and  unifying  experiences,  philosophy  or  sci- 
ence takes  the  sciences  themselves  i\&  data  for  its  general- 
izations? Science  is  not  merely  knowledge,  but  knowl- 
edges comprehended  by  the  judging  faculty,  and  set  in 
orderly  relation  to  laws  or  principles.  The  recorded  ob- 
servation of  facts  or  experiences  does  not  alone  constitute 
a  science.  This  furnishes  material  out  of  which  "  reflec- 
tive and  speculative  thinking  "  may  construct  a  science. 
Thus  the  patient,  wide-spread,  long-continued  record  of 
observations  concerning  the  weather  may  indicate  the 
laws  of  wind,  rain,  heat,  storms,  and  the  systemization  of 
phenomena  apparently  so  variable  will  by  and  by  erect 
meteorology  into  a  proper  science.  On  the  other  hand, 
an  abstract  theory,  however  perfect  in  its  parts  and  com- 
plete in  the  adjustment  of  those  parts  to  a  system,  can- 
not alone  constitute  a  science.  Even  in  pure  mathe- 
matics the  a,  b,  c,  x,  y,  and  z  of  an  algebraic  formula, 
and  the  lines  and  angles  of  geometrical  figures  for  the 
purposes  of  demonstration,  are  conceived  of  as  objective 
realities.  Though  in  nature  there  is  no  such  thing  as  an 
absolutely  straight  line,  nor  two  lines  strictly  parallel, 
nor  a  perfect  square  or  circle  ;  yet  reason  does  not  build 
the  vast  and  orderly  system  of  the  higher  mathematics 

1  Dr.  E.  Zeller,  Die  Philosophie  der  Griechen.   Vierte  Auflage.    Eia-. 
leitung,  vol.  i.  pp.  6,  7. 


218  WHAT  IS  SCIENCE? 

upon  abstract  nonentities,  but  upon  ideal  entities  wliich, 
for  the  time  being,  the  mind  clothes  with  reality.  Yet 
an  hj'pothesis,  though  springing  from  the  imagination  — 
like  Kepler's  notion  of  the  harmony  of  the  spheres  — 
may  lead  to  the  discovery  or  detection  of  facts  which  will 
serve  as  links  for  binding  facts,  before  unexplained,  into 
the  chain  of  laws.  Hence  it  is  that  facts  and  laws,  or 
the  knowledge  of  phenomena  and  the  systematic  adjust- 
ment of  phenomena  in  their  relations  to  each  other  and 
to  underlying  causes,  forces,  or  principles,  must  combine 
in  order  to  constitute  a  science. 

Science  is  the  summation  and  colligation  of  all  the 
knowledges  pertaining  to  a  given  subject-matter ^  and  the 
formulation  of  these  in  abstract  general  conceptions. 

Under  this  category  stand  the  physical  sciences,  meta- 
physics, logic,  and  religion  itself. 


X. 

WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 
(From  the  British  Quarterly,  October,  1879.) 

In  Professor  Max  Miiller's  "  Lectures  on  the  Science 
of  Religion,"  ^  the  best  part  of  the  book  is  its  title.  This 
suggests  that  religion  may  be  treated  scientifically,  after 
the  same  method  of  induction  and  classification  which 
has  been  applied  so  successfully  to  the  study  of  language, 
and  which  is  in  use  in  the  physical  sciences.  Indeed, 
Miiller  would  associate  comparative  theology  with  com- 
parative philology  not  only  in  method,  but  also  in  mate- 
rial. He  finds  "  the  outward  framework  of  the  incipient 
religions  of  antiquity  "  in  a  few  words  —  such  as  names 
of  the  Deity,  and  in  certain  spiritual  and  technical  terms 
—  which  were  substantially  the  same  among  all  earlier 
peoples.  "If  we  look  at  this  simple  manifestation  of  re- 
ligion, we  see  at  once  why  religion,  during  those  early 
ages  of  which  we  are  here  speaking,  may  really  and  truly 
be  called  a  sacred  dialect  of  human  speech ;  how,  at  all 
events,  early  religion  and  early  language  are  most  inti- 
mately connected,  religion  depending  entirely  for  its  out- 
ward expression  on  the  more  or  less  adequate  resources 
of  language."  ^  But  while  finding  in  words  the  key  to 
religions,  Miiller  furnishes  no  terms  by  which  to  define 

^  Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Religion.     Four  Lectures  delivered 
at  the  Royal  Institution.     By  F.  Max  Miiller,  M.  A. 
2  Jbid.  p.  153. 


220  WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 

or  describe  religion.  His  nearest  approach  to  this  is  a 
formula  which  would  cause  physicists  peremptorily  to  re- 
ject religion  from  the  category  of  science.  "  As  there  is 
a  faculty  of  speech,  independent  of  all  the  historical 
forms  of  language,  so  there  is  a  faculty  of  faith  in  man 
independent  of  all  historical  religions ;  .  .  .  that  faculty 
which,  independent  of,  nay,  in  spite  of  sense  and  rea- 
son (!),  enables  man  to  apprehend  the  Infinite  under  dif- 
ferent names  and  under  varying  disguises.  ...  In  Ger- 
man we  can  distinguish  that  third  faculty  by  the  name 
of  Vernunft,,  as  opposed  to  Verstand^  reason,  and  Sinne^ 
sense.  In  English  I  know  no  better  name  for  it  than 
the  faculty  of  faith,  though  it  will  have  to  be  guarded  by 
careful  definition,  in  order  to  confine  it  to  those  objects 
only  which  cannot  be  supplied  either  by  the  evidence  of 
the  senses  or  by  the  evidence  of  reason.  No  simply  his- 
torical fact  can  ever  fall  under  the  cognizance  of  faith."  ^ 

The  phrase  we  have  italicized  above  would  bar  the 
claim  of  religion  to  a  place  among  the  sciences  ;  for 
though  the  physical  sciences  themselves  employ  Icaith  as 
a  prelude  and  guide  to  discovery,  science  could  never  ad- 
mit an  hypothetical  belief  in  "  spite  of  sense  and  reason." 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Christian  faith  does  rest 
throughout  upon  the  "  simply  historical  facts  "  that  Je- 
sus Christ  was  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  was  crucified 
under  Pontius  Pilate,  was  buried,  and  rose  from  the 
dead. 

By  the  "  science  of  religion  "  Miiller  intends  what  is 
better  styled  "  comparative  theology."  Now,  to  theol- 
ogy, as  the  logical  statement  and  systematic  arrangement 
of  the  facts  and  doctrines  within  its  province,  the  title  of 
a  science  is  commonly  conceded ;  and  the  comparison  of 
different  systems  of  religious  belief  and  worship,  by  dis- 
covering resemblances  in  conceptions,  in  terms,  and  in 
*  Introduction  to  the  Science  of  Reliyioii,  pp.  16,  17. 


COMPARATIVE   THEOLOGY.  221 

usages  and  forms,  and  by  classifying  these  systematically 
under  general  principles,  may  create  a  science  —  say,  if 
there  be  not  a  contradiction  in  the  terms  —  the  science  of 
beliefs.  Since  the  faculty  of  believing,  equally  with  the 
faculty  of  knowing,  is  a  native  quality  of  the  human 
mind,  not  only  must  this  faculty  itself  fall  within  the 
categories  of  psychology,  but  the  objects  of  belief  must 
be  capable  of  being  reduced  to  some  form  of  logical  state- 
ment and  classification.  But  theology  and  comparative 
theology  are  themselves  but  outward  forms  or  expres- 
sions of  the  religious  idea  or  sentiment.  In  religion  we 
have  to  do  with  a  conception,  a  feeling,  a  state  of  mind, 
which  is  common  to  mankind  ;  and  the  essence  of  re- 
ligion lies  at  the  back  of  all  forms  of  theology  and  of 
worship.  What,  then,  is  this  universal  phenomenon  of 
the  human  spirit? — this  which  experience  and  history 
testify,  through  all  migrations  and  mixtures  of  races, 
through  all  fluctuations  of  social  and  political  institu- 
tions, through  all  systems  of  philosophy  and  theology, 
and  through  all  developments  of  science  and  art,  is  the 
one  transmigratory  soul,  forever  inspiring  human  thought, 
forever  influencing  human  life  ? 

It  is  said  of  Comte  that,  towards  the  close  of  life,  he 
openly  confessed  that  "  the  human  mind  could  not  rest 
satisfied  (ne  pent  se  passer')  without  a  belief  in  indepen- 
dent wills  which  interfere  in  the  events  of  the  world." 
Of  this  concession  Comte's  biographer  says :  "  Never 
was  there  an  avowal  more  fatal  to  the  positive  philoso- 
phy. If  this  be  true,  the  human  mind  is  necessarily  the- 
ologic,  and  it  would  be  as  great  a  folly  to  contend  against 
that  necessity  as  against  all  other  necessities,  physical  or 
organic."  ^  This  fatal  concession  of  Comte,  Littrd  im- 
putes to  the  weakness  induced  by  excess  of  work,   "  a 

^  Auguste  Comte  et  la  PhilosopMe  Positive.  Par  E.  Littr^,  p.  578. 
Troisieiue  partie,  chap.  vi. 


222  WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 

serious  nervous  disease,"  which  caused  the  author  of  the 
"  Philosophie  Positive "  to  relapse  into  the  subjective 
method  and  its  theological  tendencies.  But  the  influ- 
ences under  which  the  great  positivist  admitted  the  uni- 
versal necessity  of  a  religious  faith  are  of  minor  impor- 
tance ;  what  here  concerns  us  is  that  the  thing  itself  is 
true  ;  that  the  human  mind  is  "  necessarily  theologic  ;  "  ^ 
that  a  something  within  us  impels  us  to  religion ;  that 
metaphysical  analysis  lands  us  at  last  in  the  absolute  ; 
that  the  induction  of  physical  facts  and  the  unification 
of  the  laws  of  the  universe,  through  the  correlation  of 
forces,  leads  us  to  the  conception  of  a  supreme  cause  or 
power ;  and  that  the  study  of  mankind  under  all  condi- 
tions forces  us  to  conclude  with  Spencer,  that  "  religion, 
everywhere  present  as  a  weft  running  through  the  warp 
of  human  history,  expresses  some  eternal  fact."  ^  That 
fact  is  the  aim  of  our  inquiry. 

Religious  questions  shift  their  ground,  change  their 
form,  vary  in  interest  and  importance,  according  to  the 
temper  of  the  times,  the  schools  of  thought,  the  bent  of 
leaders  in  church  or  in  state,  in  politics  or  in  philosophy. 
The  theological,  the  ecclesiastical,  the  speculative,  the 
practical  phases  of  religion  are  by  turns  predominant  or 
antagonistic.  Many  a  dogma  and  theory  has  been  ex- 
ploded, many  a  form  set  aside,  many  a  practice  aban- 
doned, in  the  endeavor  after  that  union  of  knowledge 
and  freedom,  of  reason  and  will  with  faith,  which  is  the 
ideal  of  a  philosophical  religion.  But  while  religious 
questions  have  been  thus  relative  and  fluctuating,  the 
question  of  religion  has  suffered  no  abatement  in  its  mo- 

^  The  late  Professor  Trendelenburg,  of  Berlin,  once  said  to  the 
writer,  "  I  believe  in  logic  as  strongly  as  did  llegel,  but  1  believe 
also  in  </(eo-logic." 

8  Herbert  Spencer's  First  Principles^  p.  20,  chap,  i.,  "  Religion 
and  Science." 


THE  REALITY  OF  RELIGION.  223 

ment  to  the  individual  man  and   to   the  well-being  of 
mankind. 

Whether  with  Lecky  we  regard  religion  ns  "  modes  of 
emotion,"  in  distinction  from  theology,  which  consists  of 
"  intellectual  propositions  ;  ^  or,  with  Kant,  hold  that 
"  religion,  subjectively  considered,  is  the  recognition  of 
all  our  duties  as  divine  commands;  "^  whether,  with 
Comte,  we  "  refer  the  obligations  of  duty,  as  well  as  all 
sentiments  of  devotion,  to  a  concrete  object,  at  once  ideal 
and  real  —  the  human  race  conceived  as  one  great  be- 
ing ; "  3  or,  with  Herbert  Spencer,  we  find  the  root  of  re- 
ligion in  "  mystery  of  an  inscrutable  power  in  the  uni- 
verse ;  "  *  whether,  with  Mill,  we  rest  in  a  dry  formula 
of  "  the  infinite  nature  of  duty  ;"  ^  or  share  with  Schlei- 
ermacher  "  the  immediate  feeling  of  the  dependence  of 
man  upon  God ;  "  ^  —  under  all  modes  of  statement,  of 
expression,  and  even  of  negation,  behind  all  objects  of 
adoration,  personal  and  impersonal,  humanity,  nature, 
God,  there  lies  the  reality  of  religion  —  an  inalienable, 
indestructible,  irrepressible  something  in  the  constitution 
of  man,  testified  to  by  the  finer  instincts  of  the  soul,  by 
its  sense  of  duty,  its  aspirations  after  virtue,  its  yearn- 
ings toward  the  invisible,  and  confirmed  by  man's  expe- 
riences of  nature  and  by  the  course  of  human  history. 
It  is  this  something  in  man  that  we  are  seeking  to  ana- 
lyze and  define :  What  is   Religion  ?     This  question  is 

*  Rationalism  in  Europe,  vol.  i.  p.  356. 

^  Der  philosophischen  Religionslehre,  viertes  Stiick,  erster  Theil. 
8  The  Positive  Philosophy  of  Auguste  Comte,  p.  121.     By  John  Stu- 
art Mill.     With  Comte  Ic  grand  etre  is  always  Vhumanilt. 

*  First  Principles,  chap,  ii.,  "  Ultimate  Religious  Ideas." 
^  John  Stuart  Mill,  Essay  on  Comte. 

^  Reden  iiher  die  Religion.  In  the  same  discourse  Schleiermacher 
says,  "Religion  is  neither  a  special  mode  of  tbought  nor  a  special 
mode  of  deportment;  it  is  neither  knowledge  nor  action;  it  \6  feel- 
ing." 


224  WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 

broader  than  any  question  of  natural  science  or  of  theol- 
ogy; broader  than  the  question  of  adjusting  theology 
with  natural  science  ;  broader  than  the  stream  of  human 
history,  with  all  the  collective  interests  of  society,  gov- 
ernment, letters,  art  ;  broader  than  the  measure  of  the 
earth  and  of  the  peoples  that  inhabit  it ;  more  vital  and 
imperative  than  any  question  of  reform  in  church  or  in 
state,  or  of  progress  in  knowledge  and  in  society  ;  it  is 
the  question  of  every  race  and  of  every  time,  from  the 
savage  with  his  fetich  to  the  Platonist  with  his  ideas, 
and  the  positivist  with  his  laws ;  a  question  new  to  each 
man  and  binding  upon  every  man  —  the  question  of  his 
own  being,^  its  origin,  its  relations,  its  obligations,  its 
possibilities,  its  destiny  :  "  What  can  I  knotv  ?  What 
ought  I  to  do  ?     What  may  I  hope  ?  "  ^ 

As  in  defining  science  we  were  careful  to  eliminate  from 
the  definition^all  theoretical  prepossession  —  all  that  the 
Germans  style  Tendenz  — so,  in  seeking  to  define  religion, 
we  should  divest  ourselves  of  every  theological  bias,  and 
in  the  very  spirit  of  science  search  for  the  primary  facta 
in  this  phenomenon  of  human  consciousness.  We  should 
especially  guard  against  a  devout  tendency  to  forestall 

1  John  Stuart  Mill  says  in  bis  autobiography,  "  I  was  brought  up 
from  the  first  without  any  religious  belief,  in  the  ordinary  accepta- 
tion of  the  term."  Yet  we  find  Mill  feeling  his  way  toward  "an 
ideal  conception  of  a  perfect  Being,"  as  the  guide  of  conscience ;  we 
find  him  arguing  "the  beneficial  eilect  "  of  a  hope  in  God  and  in 
immortality,  in  that  *'  it  makes  life  and  human  nature  a  far  greater 
thing  to  the  feelings  ; "  and  at  last  rendering  a  sublime  hom.age  to 
the  character  and  teachings  of  Christ.  Then,  with  a  pathetic  weak- 
ness, which  in  a  Bushman  he  would  have  smiled  at  as  superstition, 
this  great  philosopher,  after  the  death  of  his  wife,  records:  "  In  or- 
der to  feel  her  still  near  me,  I  bought  a  cottage  as  close  as  possible 
to  the  place  where  she  is  buried.  .  .  .  Her  memory  is  to  me  a  re- 
lifjion.'^ 

2  Kant,  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunfi :  *'  Der  Kanon  der  reinen  Ver- 
nunft,"  zweiter  Abschnitt. 


WIJAT  IS  TRUTH r  225 

the  inquiry  by  assuming  that  this  or  that  religion  is  the 
true  religion  ;  and  should  accept  only  that  as  truth  which 
gives  the  reality  of  things.  In  every  sphere  of  investiga- 
tion truth  is  the  sole  demand  of  an  honest  mind  ;  in  phys- 
ical science,  the  facts  of  nature  and  the  true  explication 
of  her  phenomena  ;  in  the  science  of  mind,  the  facts  of 
consciousness,  the  laws  of  a  true  psychology,  and  also 
what  logic  may  determine  to  be  true  in  the  region  of  ul- 
timate ideas  and  of  the  absolute ;  in  the  sphere  of  ethics, 
the  true  ground  of  virtue,  the  true  science  of  rights,  and 
the  ultimate  source  of  moral  obligation ;  in  history,  not 
only  truth  in  the  record  of  events,  but  the  true  philosophy 
of  human  society ;  in  theology,  truth  as  seen  in  nature, 
felt  in  consciousness,  or  revealed  by  God.  It  is  truth  that 
Helmholtz  is  in  quest  of  in  his  laboratory  and  Darwin  in 
his  cabinet ;  it  is  truth  that  Lepsius  would  decipher  from 
the  hieroglyphics  of  Egypt,  and  Broca  from  the  remains 
of  prehistoric  man  ;  it  is  truth  that  Sir  William  Hamilton 
and  his  critic  Mill  have  sought  with  equal  honesty  in  the 
study  of  the  human  intellect  and  of  the  unconditioned ; 
•it  is  truth  that  Huxley  seeks  in  the  hints  of  biology  and 
Spencer  in  ultimate  ideas  ;  from  Plato  to  Schleiermacher, 
his  translator  and  expounder,  truth  has  been  the  ideal  in 
the  world  of  thought ;  from  Aristotle  to  Humboldt,  his 
royal  successor  in  the  priesthood  of  nature,  truth  has  been 
the  objective  in  the  world  of  fact ;  above  all  sects  in 
Christianity,  above  all  schools  in  theology,  truth  is  con- 
fessed as  the  standard  and  authority.  Truth  is  the  pole 
of  every  explorer,  around  which  he  hopes  to  find  an  open 
sea,  and  either  safe  anchorage  or  a  sure  outlet  into  the 
infinite.  And  what  if  science  at  last  shall  discover  that 
the  star  that  must  guide  to  that  pole  is  religion,  which 
there  sits  enthroned  above  all  night,  unchanged  by  all  the 
revolutions  of  the  world  ?     What  then  is  this  constant 

15 


226  WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 

fact  of  human  experience  ?  In  the  name  of  truth  we  ask, 
What  is  lieligion  ? 

It  should  be  easy  to  define  a  term  which  the  Romanic 
and  Teutonic  peoples  have  alike  appropriated  from  the 
Latin  for  the  same  thing ;  or  to  describe  the  thing  itself, 
which  exists  almost  universally  in  the  experiences  and 
usages  of  mankind.  Yet  the  conception  of  religion  varies 
according  as  the  term  is  taken  etyraologically,  popularly, 
or  scientifically.  Cicero  has  given  the  etymology  of  the 
word  religio  with  a  precision  that  has  the  air  of  author- 
ity. 

*'  They  who  diligently  and  repeatedly  review,  and  as  it  were 
rehearse  again  and  again  everything  that  pertains  to  the  worship 
of  the  gofls,  are  called  religious,  from  rellgendo  [going  over  again 
in  reading  or  in  thought]  ;  as  the  elegant  from  eligendo  [choos- 
ing with  care,  picking  out]  ;  the  diligent  from  diligendo  [attend- 
ing carefully  to  what  we  value] ;  the  intelligent  from  intelli- 
gendo  [understanding  persons  and  things].  In  all  these  words 
the  derivation  of  meaning  is  analogous  to  the  word  religious."  ^ 

Lactantius,^  however,  derives  religio  from  religare,  to 
bind  back  or  fast.  This  meaning  is  retained  in  the  French 
religieux^  which  denotes  a  person  who  is  bound  by  vows 
to  a  life  of  sanctity.  Critics  are  pretty  evenly  divided  be- 
tween these  two  derivations.  Under  the  first,  religion  is 
a  voluntary  act,  either  mental  or  outward,  though  inspired 
no  doubt  by  a  sense  of  obligation  ;  under  the  second,  re- 
ligion is  the  sense  of  obligation,  which  finds  expression  in 
pious  feelings  and  in  acts  of  devotion.  In  Cicero's  mean- 
ing, religion  corresponds  nearly  to  the  German  Andacht, 

^  "  Qui  autem  omnia,  qua;  ad  cultum  deorum  pertinerent,  diligen- 
ter  retractarant  et  tanquam  relegerent,  sunt  dicti  religiosi  ex  relifjendo, 
ut  elegantes  ex  eligendo,  itenique  ex  diligendo  diligentes,  ex  intelli- 
gendo  intelligentes.  His  enim  in  verbis  omnibus  inest  vis  legendi 
eadem  qua;  in  religiose."  —  De  Natura  Deorum,  lib.  ii.  cap.  28. 

2  Lactant.  iv.  28. 


GREEK  AND  ROMAN  IDEAS  OF  RELIGION.       227 

"  the  careful  pondering  of  divine  things,"  ^  which  Kant 
80  beautifully  describes  as  "  the  tuning  of  the  soul  to  a 
susceptibility  to  divinely  given  impressions."  ^  But  apart 
from  his  etymology  of  the  word  religio^  Cicero  uses  the 
term  in  a  gradation  with  "  piety  "  and  "sanctity,"  which 
requires  for  "  religion  "  the  sense  of  moral  obligation. 

"  Pietas  is  a  sincere  loyal  disposition  toward  those  with  whom 
one  stands  in  near  relations,  —  relatives,  colleagues,  superiors, 
and  especially  toward  the  gods  as  rulers  and  benefactors.  Sane- 
titas  is  an  irreproachable,  faultless  carriage  towards  the  gods. 
But  religio  is  the  recognition  of  the  obligation  by  which  one 
feels  himself  bound."  ' 

With  the  Greeks  religion,  though  perhaps  more  assidu- 
ously practiced  than  among  the  Romans,  was  less  rigidly 
defined.  Their  OprjaKcia  was  religious  worship  and  usages, 
rather  than  the  essence  of  religion  in  spirit  and  motive ; 
euae^eia  was  the  pietas  of  the  Latins,  reverence  for  parents, 
elders,  superiors,  authorities,  gratitude  toward  benefactors, 
though  Plato  uses  this  term  to  describe  a  reverent  devo- 
tion toward  the  gods,  and  bids  us  "  exhort  all  men  to 
piety,  that  we  may  avoid  the*  evil  and  obtain  the  good  "  * 
Mommsen  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  "  the  Roman  desig- 
nation of  faith,  religio^  that  is  to  say,  that  tvhieh  binds, 
was  in  word  and  in  idea  alike  foreign  to  the  Hellenes."  ^ 
Perhaps  "  that  idealizing  sense,  which  knew  how  to 
breathe  a  higher  life  even  into  inert  stone,"  refused  to 
be  confined  within  the  bonds  of  duty. 

What  religion  was  among  the  Greeks  in  respect  of  wor- 

^  See  Andrew's  Freund's  Lexicon,  art.  "  Religio." 

2  Kant,  c.  353. 

8  Schumann,  De  Natura  Deorum,  lib.  i.  cap.  2,  3.  See,  also,  Cic- 
ero's own  definitions,  lib.  i.  chap.  41  :  "  Est  enim  pietas  justitia  ad- 
versum  deos :  sanctitas  autem  est  scientia  colendorum  deorum.^' 

*  Symposium,  193. 

*  Mommsen's  History  of  Rome,  book  i.  chap.  2.  Dickson's  Trans- 
lation. 


228  WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 

ship,  beliefs,  rites,  and  customs,  it  is  easy  to  learn  from 
their  poets  and  philosophers,  their  temples  and  statues. 
The  presence  and  agency  of  the  gods  were  universally 
recognized  in  nature  and  in  human  affairs :  through  the 
An>phictyons  religious  union  became  the  basis  of  political 
confederation  ;  behind  the  symbols  of  faith  and  the  ob- 
jects of  worship  lay  an  inner  spiritual  devotion  to  higher 
spiritual  powers  ;  above  the  circle  of  the  gods  was  a  su- 
preme unifying  principle,  rule,  or  fate;  man,  as  the  head 
of  the  physical  creation,  was  divinized,  and  the  divinity 
was  humanity  idealized.  The  religion  of  the  Greeks  was 
anthropomorphic,  even  to  reproducing  the  baser  passions 
of  men  in  the  persons  of  the  gods.  But  all  this  helps  lit- 
tle toward  a  conception  of  religion  in  respect  of  ground  or 
motive;  and  in  the  absence  of  an  infallible  hierarchy,  a 
dogmatic  revelation,  and  even  of  systematic  treatises  on 
theology,  it  is  not  possible  to  reduce  to  a  simple  definition 
the  Greek  conception  of  religion  in  itself.  This  is  remark- 
able if  one  considers  how  early  the  Greek  mind  showed 
its  bent  toward  synthesis  and  speculation  ;  how  the  Greek 
poetry  is  pervaded  with  the  presence  of  divinity,  and 
Greek  philosophy  with  the  ethical  sense ;  and  with  what 
a  free  and  unclouded  spirit  the  Greek  religion  contem- 
plated the  relations  of  the  gods  with  men.  Perhaps  the 
very  natural  and  human  way  in  which  the  lives  and  do- 
ings of  the  gods  were  conceived  of,  and  the  childlike  sim- 
plicity with  which  the  gods  were  honored  and  served,  ren- 
dered a  definition  of  religion  as  difficult  and  as  superfluous 
as  a  description  of  light  and  air.  "  The  most  godly  man 
was  he  who  cultivated  in  the  most  thoi'ough  manner  his 
human  powers,  and  the  essential  fulfillment  of  religious 
duty  lay  in  this,  that  every  man  should  do  to  the  honor 
of  the  divinity  what  was  most  in  harmony  with  his  own 
nature."  ^ 

*  Zeller,  Die  Philosophie  der  Griechen,  erster  Tlieil,  vierte  Auflage, 
Einleitung,  p.  42. 


CONFUCIUS.  229 

Then  there  was  the  Sat/Awj/,  or  tutehtry  deity,  a  connect- 
ing link  between  gods  and  men,  which  might  be  a  celes- 
tial attraction  toward  the  good  or  a  fatalistic  impulse  to- 
ward the  evil,  in  either  case  modifying  that  freedom  of 
choice  which  gives  to  actions  their  moral  quality.  And 
yet,  by  faith  in  his  attending  genius,  how  gradually  did 
Socrates  struggle  after  the  pure  and  just,  the  beautiful 
and  good.  No  reader  of  the  "  Phsedo  "  can  fail  to  feel  how 
deep  and  vital  is  the  religious  spirit  that  here  endeavors 
to  give  a  dialectic  form  to  the  conceptions  of  God,  the 
soul,  right,  duty,  inlmortality  ;  and  yet  the  highest  mo- 
rality and  the  highest  philosophy  combined  in  the  subject 
and  the  framer  of  this  most  perfect  of  the  Platonic  dia- 
logues have  failed  to  direct  us  to  the  origin  and  nature 
of  the  faith  which  it  fundamentally  implies.  For  the 
mythology  of  Greece  there  is  a  rich  vocabulary  ;  for  its 
religion,  none. 

Turning  from  the  greatest  sage  of  Greece  to  the  older 
sage  of  Chipa,  we  find  in  the  dialogues  or  analects  of 
Confucius  a  system  of  social  and  political  ethics  pervaded 
with  the  religious  spirit,  but  which  gives  no  distinct  con- 
ception of  the  nature  or  the  source  of  religion  itself.  Cus- 
toms, ceremonies,  proprieties,  filial  piety,  the  worship  of 
the  spirits  of  ancestors  and  of  sages,  as  also  of  the  spirits 
of  the  land  and  of  places,  these  all  are  enjoined,  though 
in  a  somewhat  formal,  perfunctory  way,  and  with  no  ex- 
press statement  of  the  principle  or  the  authority  upon 
which  their  obligation  rests.  Virtue  and  righteousness 
in  the  outer  life  are  prescribed  with  a  sententious  wisdom  ; 
but  the  ultimate  law  of  righteousness,  whether  in  nature, 
in  reason,  or  in  God,  is  nowhere  clearly  enunciated. 

Admirable,  indeed,  were  some  of  the  rules  given  by 
Confucius  for  the  conduct  of  life.  "  To  subdue  one's  self 
and  return  to  propriety  is  perfect  virtue  ;  "  "  Benevo- 
lence is  to  love  all  men ; "  "  We  should  be  true  to  the 


230  WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 

principles  of  our  nature,  and  the  benevolent  exercise  of 
them  to  others  ; "  "  Let  the  will  be  set  on  the  path  of 
duty  ;"  "  Let  every  attainment  in  what  is  good  be  firmly 
grasped  ; "  "  Let  relaxation  and  enjoyment  be  found  in 
the  polite  arts ;  "  "  Let  every  man  consider  virtue  as 
what  devolves  on  himself.  He  may  not  yield  the  per- 
formance of  it  even  to  his  teacher  ;  "  "  The  man  who, 
when  gain  is  set  before  him,  thinks  of  righteousness;  who, 
with  danger  before  him,  is  prepared  to  give  up  his  life ; 
and  who  does  not  forget  an  old  agreement,  however  far 
back  it  extends,  such  a  man  may  be  reckoned  a  complete 
man  ;  "  "  Virtue  is  more  to  man  than  either  water  or  fire. 
I  have  seen  men  die  from  treading  on  water  and  fire,  but 
I  have  never  seen  a  man  die  from  treading  the  course  of 
virtue."  When,  however,  he  was  asked  to  define  vir- 
tue, Confucius  described  it  under  certain  manifestations, 
without  pointing  to  its  inward  essence  :  "  To  be  able  to 
practice  five  things  everywhere  under  heaven  constitutes 
perfect  virtue ;  to  wit,  gravity,  generosity  of  soul,  sin- 
cerity, earnestness,  and  kindness."  Again,  he  seemed  to 
resolve  virtue  back  into  obedience  to  knowledge. 

"  The  ancients  who  wished  to  exemplify  illustrious  virtue 
throughout  the  empire,  first  ordered  well  their  own  states. 
Wishing  to  order  well  their  states,  they  first  regulated  their 
families.  "Wishing  to  regulate  their  families,  they  first  culti- 
vated their  persons.  Wishing  to  cultivate  their  persons,  they 
first  rectified  their  hearts.  Wishing  to  rectify  their  hearts,  they 
first  sought  to  be  sincere  in  their  thoughts.  Wishing  to  be  sin- 
cere in  their  thoughts,  they  first  extended  to  the  utmost  their 
knowledge.  Such  extension  of  knowledge  lay  in  the  investiga- 
tion of  things." 

It  is  a  special  honor  of  Confucius  that  he  applied  his 
teachings  to  the  benefit  of  mankind  at  large,  and  had  no 
esoteric  doctrines:  "The  man  of  perfect  virtue,  wishing 
to  be  established  himself,  seeks  also  to  establish  others : 


ANTICIPATION  OF  THE   GOLDEN  RULE.  231 

wishing  to  be  enlarged  himself,  he  seeks  also  to  enlarge 
others."  And  it  is  certain  that  this  remarkable  sage  did 
anticipate  the'  "  Golden  Rule "  of  Christianity,  at  least 
upon  its  negative  side :  "  What  I  do  not  wish  men  to  do 
to  me,  I  also  wish  not  to  do  to  men,"  A  favorite  disci- 
ple asked,  "  Is  there  not  one  word  which  may  serve  as  a 
rule  of  practice  for  all  one's  life  ?  "  Confucius  answered, 
"  Is  not  reciprocity  such  a  word  ?  What  you  do  not 
want  done  to  yourself,  do  not  do  to  others."  When, 
however,  we  seek  for  the  ultimate  principles  upon  which 
Confucius  founded  such  lofty  precepts  of  morality,  we 
find  a  certain  vagueness  and  reserve  quite  in  contrast 
with  the  clearness  and  force  of  the  precepts  themselves. 
Though  after  his  death  Confucius  was  worshiped  by  his 
disciples  with  divine  honors,  and  though  he  remains  to 
this  day  a  chief  object  of  religious  homage  to  the  Chinese 
nation,  he  never  claimed  divinity,  and  hardly  assumed  a 
divine  commission  and  warrant  for  his  teachings.  Once, 
when  his  life  was  threatened,  he  said,  "  Was  not  the 
cause  of  truth  lodged  here  in  me?  If  Heaven  had 
wished  to  let  this  cause  of  truth  perish,  then  I  should  not 
have  got  such  a  relation  to  that  cause.  While  Heaven 
does  not  let  the  cause  of  truth  perish,  what  can  the  peo- 
ple of  K'wang  do  to  me  ?  "  Yet  he  spoke  of  himself 
with  humility,  as  the  compiler  of  the  wisdom  of  the  an- 
cients, and  not  an  originator  of  wisdom  or  the  author  of 
a  system. 

That  all  which  Confucius  said  and  did  was  prompted 
by  a  religious  sentiment  is  the  impression  one  receives 
from  an  impartial  reading  of  his  works.  "  Man,"  said 
he,  "  has  received  his  nature  from  Heaven.  Conduct  in 
accordance  with  that  nature  constitutes  what  is  right  and 
true  —  is  a  pursuing  of  the  proper  path.  .  .  .  The  path 
may  not  for  an  instant  be  left.  .  .  .  There  is  nothing 
more  visible  than  what  is  secret,  and  nothing  more  mani- 


232  WHAT  IS  RELIGION  1 

fest  than  what  is  minute,  and  therefore  the  superior  man 
is  watchful  over  his  aloneness.^^  This  seems  to  carry  the 
distinction  of  right  and  wrong  behind  actions  to  the  in- 
nermost thoughts  and  feelings,  and  to  find  in  conscience 
"  the  eye  of  the  mind "  implanted  by  Heaven.  It  is 
held  by  some  commentators  on  Confucius  that  he  had  no 
conception  of  a  personal  God,  but  used  tlie  term  heaven 
impersonally,  to  denote  the  pantheistic  principle  in  the 
universe;  but  Professor  Legge,^  whose  careful  transla- 
tion and  commentary  we  have  followed  in  the  foregoing 
citations,  is  of  opinion  that  the  term  heaven  is  fitly  ex- 
plained by  "  the  lofty  one  who  is  on  high."  There  seems 
to  be  internal  evidence  of  this  in  the  saying  of  Confucius, 
*'  He  who  offends  against  Heaven  has  none  to  whom  he 
can  pray."  The  idea  of  offense,  of  prayer,  and  of  such 
alienation  by  offense  that  prayer  can  no  longer  avail,  im- 
plies the  recognition  of  a  personal  being,  and  the  term 
heaven  is  but  a  reverential  veil  for  the  name  of  God. 
Upon  the  whole  we  may  gather  from  Confucius  that  re- 
ligion is  an  inner  sense  of  rightness  or  fitness  implanted 
in  man  by  his  Creator,  and  which  prompts  to  reverence 
toward  God  and  the  spirits  of  sages  and  of  ancestors,  to 
virtue  in  the  conduct  of  life,  and  to  justice  and  kindness 
toward  others. 

Pursuing  our  analysis  of  the  religious  idea  to  a  still 
more  remote  antiquity,  we  pass  from  China  to  India, 
from  the  preceptive  philosophy  of  Confucius  to  the  myth- 
ological poetry  of  the  Vedas.^  In  Greece  were  divinities 
and  a  worship,  but  neither  sacred  books  nor  a  hierai'chy  ; 
in  China  sacred  books  of  morality,  and  a  hierarchy  of 

^  The  Life  and  Teachings  of  Confucius.     By  James  Legfre,  D.  D. 

'  Socrates  died  u.  c.  399;  Confucius  died  u.  c.  4  78.  The  hymns 
of  the  Ilij;  Veda  are  the  most  ancient  remains  of  Indian  literature. 
No  autliority  in  Sanslcrit  assigns  to  those  a  date  more  recent  than 
B.  0.  1000,  while  some  scholars  carry  them  back  to  a  period  between 
B.  c.  2000  and  2400. 


RELIGION  OF  THE   VEDAS.  233 

sages,  but  in  the  more  ancient  times,  little  of  organized 
worship  or  of  priestly  functions ;  in  India,  however,  as 
far  back  as  we  can  trace  her  records,  institutions,  tradi- 
tions, we  find  sacred  writings,  a  sacred  order,i  and  sacred 
observances,  public  and  domestic  :  religion  the  very  warp 
and  woof  of  her  literature  and  hi8tor3^  To  a  superficial 
view  the  religion  of  the  Vedas  might  seem  a  mass  of 
fables  worthy  of  the  childhood  of  the  race,  —  the  crude 
polytheism  of  primitive  tribes.  But  in  reality  this  was 
preeminently  the  religion  of  thought,  —  the  spiritual  na- 
ture of  man  tasking  itself  with  speculations  upon  the  ori- 
gin of  things,  and  using  this  visible  material  universe  to 
personify  the  spiritual  and  unseen.  Behind  the  multi- 
farious array  of  gods  and  goddesses,  and  the  sensuous, 
sometimes  grossly  material,  conceptions  under  which 
these  are  presented,  there  is  a  subtle  spiritual  essence 
which  is  "  the  One,"  supreme,  infinite,  eternal,  absolute. 

"  There  was  then  neither  non-entity  nor  entity  ;  there  was  no 
atmosphere,  nor  the  sky  which  is  above.  .  .  .  Death  was  not 
then,  nor  immortality  ;  there  was  no  distinction  of  day  or  night. 
That  One  breathed  calmly,  self-supported ;  there  was  nothing 
different  from  It  [that  One]  or  above  It."  "^ 

This  abstract,  self-sustained  essence  is  afterwards  de- 
scribed as  Mind.  "  Desire  first  arose  in  It,  which  was 
the  primal  germ  of  mind  ;  [and  which]  sages,  searching 
with  their  intellect,  discovered  in  their  heart  to  be  the 
bond  which  connects  entity  with  non-entity." 

All  the  attributes  of  this  mysterious  impersonal  One 
are  ascribed  in  different  hymns  to  different  divinities, 
which  again  are  clothed  with  material  forms,  and  are 
subject  to  the  incidents  and  the  passions  of  human  life. 

1  It  is  uncertain  how  old  is  the  origin  of  four  castes,  but  the 
priestly  office  is  of  great  antiquity. 

2  Hymns  of  the  Rig  Veda,  x.  129.  Translated  by  Muir.  Original 
Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  v.  p.  356. 


234  WHAT  IS  RELIGION f 

Thus,  "  Purusha  himself  is  this  whole  [universe],  what- 
ever has  been,  and  whatever  shall  be.  He  is  also  the 
lord  of  immoi'tality.  .  .  .  This  universe  was  formerly 
soul  only,  in  the  form  of  Purusha."  ^  Yet  Purusha  was 
born,  and  was  immolated  in  sacrifice.  Again,  "  This  en- 
tire [universe]  has  been  created  by  Brahma."  And  yet 
"  Brahma  the  eternal,  unchanging,  and  undecaying,  was 
produced  from  the  ether."  ^  These  discrepancies  are 
perhaps  best  harmonized  by  the  supposition  that  each 
divinity  who  is  invested  with  supreme  attributes  is  but 
another  expression  for  that  One  who  is  himself  unnam- 
able ;  or  all  the  several  divinities  are  but  members  of  one 
soul,  attributes  or  manifestations  of  the  eternal,  invisible 
essence.  Whether  the  Vedic  hymns  mark  an  upward 
tendency  of  the  religious  feeling  from  naturism  to  the- 
ism, and  from  polytheism  to  monotheism,  or  whether 
their  symbolism,  like  the  adornments  of  a  cathedral, 
used  at  first  to  body  forth  the  supersensible,  had  come  to 
supplant  spiritual  worship  by  a  species  of  idolatry,  can 
hardly  be  determined  from  the  internal  evidence  of  the 
books,  or  from  contemporary  monuments  or  traditions. 
Rather  the  subjective  and  the  objective  seem  here  to  be 
combined,  to  a.  degree  which  transcends  the  union  of  the 
subtleties  of  the  Schoolmen,  with  the  sensuous  worship  of 
images  in  the  Middle  Ages.  In  the  Vedic  religion  there 
is  scope  for  every  faculty  of  the  human  mind,  —  the  dia- 
lectic, the  speculative,  the  imaginative,  the  contempla- 
tive, the  observative, — and  these  all  struggle  together 
to  give  expression  to  the  theme  which  comprehends  all 
thought,  all  being,  all  space,  all  duration. 

"  There  is  no  great  and  no  small 
To  the  soul  that  maketh  all  : 
And  where  it  coraeth,  all  things  are; 
And  it  comcth  everywhere.  "  ' 

*  Muir,  Sanskrit  Texts,  vol.  i.  pp.  9,  26. 

'  Ibid.  vol.  i.  pp.  17,  116.  «  R.  W.  Emerson. 


THE  RIG   VEDA.  235 

Hardly  a  theory  of  physics,  hardly  a  speculation  of 
metaphysics,  concerning  the  origin  of  things,  —  force, 
motion,  heat,  evolution,  light,  spirit,  — but  is  anticipated 
in  the  Rig  Veda.  There  nature  is  etherealized  and 
spirit  materialized.  "  The  intellectual  and  the  sensible, 
the  ethical  and  the  naturalistic,  are  there  conjoined  in 
the  most  inartificial  and  also  inseparable  way,  as  kernel 
and  shell  in  the  j'et  unripe  fruit  grow  indissolubly  to- 
gether." ^  Nature  and  Soul  are  one.  The  powers  of  na- 
ture personified,  and  by  turns  invested  with  all  the  attri- 
butes of  Deity,  or  the  universal  soul  manifesting  itself 
in  the  phenomena  of  nature,  especially  in  light,  —  the 
dawn,  the  sun,  the  sky,  —  all -pervading,  all-renewing, 
all-beneficent,  these  worshiped  with  hymns,  prayers,  ob- 
lations, represent  the  religion  of  India  in  the  oldest  and 
purest  of  the  Vedas. 

In  reading  these  hymns  of  more  than  thirty  centuries 
ago,  one  is  puzzled  by  the  frequent  mixture  in  the  same 
verse  of  seeming  puerility  with  real  profundity.  Where 
we  find  such  metaphysical  acumen  and  such  poetic  sub- 
limity as  often  occur  in  the  Rig  Veda,  it  is  fair  to  pre 
sume  that  connected  passages,  which  a  literal  translation 
makes  meaningless  or  childish,  had  a  higher  meaning, 
which  is  veiled  from  us  by  some  symbol  or  mystery  of 
language.  Yet  this  very  commingling  of  metaphysical 
acumen  and  poetic  fervor  with  a  certain  childish  credu- 
lity, which  characterizes  the  Rig  Veda,  is  found  also  in 
the  Hindoos  of  to-day.  Indeed,  as  these  qualities  are 
combined  rather  than  contrasted  in  those  early  hymns, 
do  they  not  show  how  human  nature,  at  all  points,  was 
open  to  the  influence  of  religion,  —  the  philosophic 
thought,  the  poetic  fancy,  equally  with  the  childlike 
faith  ?     And  if  at  length  materialism  shall  establish  its 

^  O.  Pfleiderer,  Die  Religion,  ihr  Wesen  und  ihr  Geschichte,  vol. 
ii.  p.  82. 


236  WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 

atomic  theory  of  the  universe,  this  vaunted  outcome  of 
physical  science  could  but  reaffirm  an  old  metaphysical 
theory  of  the  Indian  mind,  — the  development  of  the  uni- 
verse from  motion  and  heat,  "  impregnating  powers  and 
mighty  forces,  a  self-supporting  principle  beneath,  and 
energy  aloft."  ^  If  physical  science  would  make^  God 
"  the  sum  of  all  the  forces  of  the  universe,"  the  Vedic 
religion  made  of  Nature  "a  metaphysical  deity." 

Recent  researches  in  Babylon  have  brought  to  light 
evidences  of  a  religion  there  remarkable  for  simplicity 
and  purity,  —  teaching  the  unity  of  God  and  doctrines 
concerning  sin,  forgiveness,  and  the  resurrection  of  the 
body,  with  singular  analogies  on  some  points  to  the  He- 
brew Scriptures.2  But  as  there  is  still  some  controversy 
among  Assyrian  scholars  concerning  the  proximate  date 
of  these  memorials  and  their  inscriptions,  we  simply  bring 
them  into  notice  here,  and  pass  to  a  single  additional  ex- 
ample. 

Older  than  the  oldest  of  the  Vedas,  and  with  the  pos- 
sible exception  just  mentioned,  the  most  ancient  landmark 
between  the  prehistoric  chaos  and  the  recorded  course  of 
the  -world's  history  is  tlie  religion  of  Egypt,  as  read  in 
her  temples  and  monuments,  and  especially  in  the  "  Book 
of  the  Dead."  If  in  the  liturgy  of  Egypt,  as  in  that  of 
India,  we  find  a  mingling  of  the  puerile  and  grotesque 
with  the  thoughtful  and  sublime,  there  is,  on  the  whole, 
in  the  faith  of  Egypt  more  of  mystery,  and  in  her  wor- 
ship more  of  majesty.  In  Egypt,  as  in  India,  we  find  in 
the  religious  odes  a  frequent  interblending  of  subjective 
and  objective,  of  metaphysical  conceptions  rising  to  pure 
monotheism  and  nature- worship,  taking  upon  them  much 
sooner  than  in  India  the  symbolic  form  of  idolatry.  At 
the  same  time  we  are  left  in  suspense  as  to  the  order  of 

»  Rig  Veda,  x.  129. 

^  Sayce's  Lectures  on  Babylonian  Literature. 


RELIGION  IN  EGYPT  AND  ETUIOPIA.  237 

manifestation, — whether  polytheistic  forms  sprang  from 
a  monotheistic  root,^  or  from  the  broad  bsise  of  nature- 
worship  religion  rose  like  a  pyramid  tapering  upwards  to 
a  single  point.  But  the  Egyptian  —  whether  he  worshiped 
the  sun  as  god  or  as  a  manifestation  of  the  Deity,  whether 
he  worshiped  Osiris  as  the  vivifying,  fructifying  potency 
in  nature,  or  as  a  type  of  the  ever-living,  ever-progressing 
soul  —  did  certainly  conceive  of  a  supreme  divinity,  self- 
originated,  invisible,  incorruptible,  imperishable,  the  crea- 
tor and  lord  of  all.  The  worship  was  elaborate  and  im- 
posing, and  the  priesthood  almost  absolute  over  domestic 
life,  and  even  in  affairs  of  state.  "  The  Egyptians,"  said 
Herodotus,  "  are  religious  to  excess,  far  beyond  any  other 
race  of  men."  But  that  faith  can  hardly  be  called  a 
superstition  which  projected  itself  beyond  the  world  and 
time  into  the  regions  of  spiritual  life,  and  drew  thence 
motives  to  the  noblest  conduct  of  this  life,  —  to  justice, 
honesty,  temperance,  chastity,  truth,  reverence,  piety, 
kindness,  and  beneficence. 

It  seems  a  complete  collapse  to  pass  from  the  high 
plane  of  religious  thought  and  worship  in  Egypt  and  in 
Ethiopia  to  the  fetichism  of  inner  Africa.  Yet  even  in 
fetichism  is  found  a  belief  in  supernatural  power,  in  fate 
and  mystery,  in  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  and  in  other  spir- 
its of  good  and  evil ;  and  in  all  this  the  groundwork  of  a 
spiritual  faith.  In  attributing  to  a  doll  the  speech  and 
passions  of  a  human  being,  the  child  makes  this  thing  of 
wax  or  wood  a  reflection  of  the  personality  which  is  just 
developing  in  its  own  consciousness  ;  it  projects  the  spir- 
itual beyond  its  inner  self  to  be  mated  with  some  other 
spirit  which  it  feels  must  be.  And  so,  in  the  infancy  of 
the  race,  man  makes  the  stone,  the  block,  the  material 
thing  that  pleases  him  or  does  him  harm,  a  spirit  to  be 

1  Bunsen  held  that  "all  polytheism  is  based  on  monotheism." 
EgypCs  Place  in  Universal  History,  book  v.  part  I.  sec.  2,  C. 


238  WHAT  IS  RELIGION f 

conversed  with,  to  be  propitiated,  or  to  be  shunned.  The 
spirit  within  him,  felt  though  unseen,  reaches  forth  after 
the  spiritual  without,  which  is  felt  though  it  cannot  be 
seen. 

Whether  belief  in  a  personal  God  is  so  general  that  it 
may  be  regarded  as  native,  or  at  least  normal  to  the  hu- 
man mind,  it  does  not  fall  within  our  present  scope  to 
consider.  Neither  is  this  the  place  for  a  general  review 
of  comparative  mythology.  Our  sole  aim  in  analyzing 
the  religions  of  different  races  and  different  periods  has 
been  to  get  at  a  conception  of  religion  itself  at  once  so 
fundamental  and  so  comprehensive  that,  in  defining  this, 
we  shall  fix  the  place  of  the  religious  idea  or  sentiment  in 
the  system  of  philosophic  thought,  distinct  from  forms  of 
worship  and  dogmas  of  theology.  Thus  far  it  is  evident 
that  religion  is  reverence  or  homage  to  an  object  external 
to  the  worshiper,  which  is  looked  upon  as  superior  in 
nature,  in  character,  or  in  power.  That  this  object  should 
be  conceived  of  as  a  personal  Being,  or  as  one  only  God, 
is  not  essential ;  but  religion  does  require  an  object  of 
faith  or  worship,  a  something  exterior  to  the  man,  which 
he  looks  upon  with  a  sentiment  of  admiration,  of  loyalty, 
or  of  awe,  which  leads  him  to  acts  of  homage.  The  vir- 
tue which  proceeds  solely  from  one's  inward  impulses,  or 
from  self-regulation,  with  no  reference  in  thought  or  feel- 
ing to  any  external  source  or  motive  of  obligation,  is 
morality  or  goodness,  but  not  piety  or  religion.  But,  on 
the  one  hand,  the  lowest  form  of  fetichism,  having  an 
object  of  worship,  is  called  a  religion ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  usage  allows  the  term  religion  to  the  homage  to  an 
ideal,  such  as  nature  or  humanity  in  the  abstract ;  since 
such  an  ideal  as  the  commanding  motive  or  power  over 
the  soul  is  to  all  intents  personified  or  deified  as  the  ob- 
ject of  worship.  This  application  of  the  term  —  perhaps 
a  little  overstrained  —  Mr.  Mill  has  pointed  out  in  the 


RELIGION  OF  COMTE  AND  MILL.  239 

case  of  Comte,  and  also  of  his  own  father.  Speaking  of 
Comte's  homage  to  collective  humanity  as  the  '■'■  grand 
Hre^''  Mill  says  :  "  It  may  not  be  consonant  to  usage  to 
call  this  a  religion  ;  but  the  term,  so  applied,  has  a  mean- 
ing, and  one  which  is  not  adequately  expressed  by  any 
other  word.  Candid  persons  of  all  creeds  may  be  willing 
to  admit,  that  if  a  person  has  an  ideal  object,  his  attach- 
ment and  sense  of  duty  towards  which  are  able  to  control 
and  discipline  all  his  other  sentiments  and  propensities, 
and  prescribe  to  him  a  rule  of  life,  that  person  has  a  re- 
ligion." He  then  argues  that,  in  the  majesty  of  his  idea 
of  humanity  as  the  object  of  reverence  and  love,  and  in 
his  golden  rule  of  denying  self  to  live  for  others,  —  "  vivre 
pour  autruQ^  —  Comte  "  had  realized  the  essential  con- 
ditions of  a  religion."  ^  And  in  describing  his  father's 
character  and  opinions,  Mr.  Mill  contends  that  many 
whose  belief  is  far  short  of  deism  may  be  "  truly  relig- 
ious," since  "  they  have  that  which  constitutes  the  prin- 
cipal worth  of  all  religions  whatever,  —  an  ideal  concep- 
tion of  a  perfect  Being,  to  which  they  habitually  refer  as 
the  guide  of  their  conscience."  ^  This  ideal,  though  exist- 
ing purely  in  thought,  is  nevertheless  projected  before  the 
mind  as  a  reality ;  and  the  bare  conception  of  such  an 
existence  creates  an  obligation  to  conform  to  this  as  the 
standard  of  life.  Hence  there  enter  into  religion  three 
elements  or  conditions  more  or  less  pronounced  —  Nature, 
Man,  or  God ;  and  the  precedence  of  one  or  the  other  of 
these  elements,  in  the  proportion  in  which  they  are  com- 
bined, gives  to  different  religions  their  distinguishing 
characteristics.  The  first  of  these  elements  is  Nature. 
Now  this  term  is  so  used  by  materialists  as  to  exclude 
from  the  categories  of  science  every  form  of  the  religious 

1  The  Positive  Philosophy  of  Auguste  Comte,   By  John  Stuart  Mill, 
pp.  121-124.     Also,  Westminster  Review,  At^xW^HQI. 
*  Autobiography,  book  46. 


240  WHAT  IS  RELIGION f 

idea ;  hence  a  strict  definition  of  nature  must  precede  and 
prepare  our  definition  of  religion. 

Going  back  to  the  Greek  conception  of  nature,  we  find  to 
fjiva-iKov  sharply  distinguished  from  to  t/Oikov  and  to  koyiKov. 

In  his  "  Metaphysics  "  Aristotle  gives  a  definition  of 
<^vo-ts,  or  nature,  which  separates  it  equally  from  the 
sphere  of  mathematical  speculations  and  from  that  of 
spiritual  powers. 

"  Physics  are  concerned  with  things  that  have  a  principle  of 
motion  in  themselves;  mathematics  speculate  on  permanent  but 
not  transcendental  and  self-existent  things  ;  and  there  is  another 
science  separate  from  these  two,  which  treats  of  that  which  is 
immutable  and  transcendental,  if  indeed  there  exists  such  a  sub- 
stance, as  we  shall  endeavor  to  show  that  there  does.  This 
transcendental  and  permanent  substance,  if  it  exists  at  all,  must 
surely  be  the  sphere  of  the  divine,  it  must  be  the  first  and  high- 
est principle.  Hence  it  follows  that  there  are  three  kinds  of 
speculative  science,  physics,  mathematics,  and  theology."  ^ 

When  he  comes  to  speak  of  nature  more  specifically, 
in  his  lectures  on  physics,  Aristotle  gives  this  twofqld 
definition :  "  Nature  may  be  said  in  one  way  to  be  the 
simplest  and  most  deep-lying  substratum  of  matter  in 
things  possessing  their  own  principle  of  motion  and 
change ;  in  another  way  it  may  be  called  the  form  and 
law  of  such  things."  ^  And  so  Bacon,  in  the  second  book 
of  the  "  Novum  Organum,  in  the  first  aphorism,  speaks 
oi  forma  as  natura  naturans,  and  in  the  thirteenth  apho- 
rism as  ipsissima  res. 

Passing  over  from  the  Greeks  to  the  Latins,  we  find 
the  equivalent  of  t^vo-is  in  natura,  from  nascor,  which  the 
German  accurately  renders  hy  gehoren  werden,  —  not  sim- 
ply born  or  coming  into  being,  but  both  origin  and  gene- 

^  Metaphysics,  x.  vii.  7. 

'  Nat.  Aux.  II.  i.  8.  See  Sir  Alexander  Grant's  Ethics  of  Aris- 
totle, Essay  iv. 


MEANING  OF  NATURE.  241 

sis.  Hence  natura  denotes  not  only  result,  but  ongoing 
process,  that  orderly  becoming  which  comprehends  both 
that  which  is  produced  and  also  the  producing  agent. 
In  the  individual,  nature  denotes  the  constitution  or  the 
quality  of  a  thing  as  produced ;  and  when  conceived  of 
collectively  or  in  continuity,  nature  is  the  order  or  course 
of  things,  as  being  and  "  about-to-be." 

Curiously  enough,  Lucretius,  in  his  poetical  disquisi- 
tion on  "  The  Nature  of  Things,"  has  omitted  to  give  a 
strict  definition  of  nature.  Cicero,  however,  in  discoursing 
of  "  the  nature  of  the  gods,"  gives  these  notions  of  the 
term :  — 

"  Some  think  that  nature  is  a  certain  irrational  power,  excit- 
ing in  bodies  the  necessary  motions ;  others,  that  it  is  an  intelH- 
gent  power,  acting  by  order  and  method,  designing  some  end  in 
every  cause,  and  always  aiming  at  that  end.  .  .  .  And  some 
again,  as  Epicurus,  apply  the  word  nature  to  everything."  ^ 

Cicero  himself  personifies  nature,  using  this  as  an  equiva- 
lent for  the  gods,  and  speaking  of  nature  as  an  artificer 
and  an  intelligence. 

Nevertheless,  in  strict  usage,  nature  stands  in  contrast 
to  both  spirit  and  art.  Etymologically,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  natura  is  generation,  but  in  the  double  sense  of  that 
which  is  born  and  that  which  is  in  course  of  parturition, 
—  the  thing  or  event  which  is  and  is  continually  becom- 
ing; Werden  and  Dasein  in  perpetual  flux  and  reflux. 
Hence  nature  comes  to  mean  the  constitution  of  the 
world  and  the  universe  and  the  course  of  things.  In 
German  philosophy  the  term  Natur  is  chiefly  used  to  de- 
note the  world  of  matter  in  contrast  to  the  world  of 
spirit  or  intelligence.  How,  then,  do  we  form  our  con- 
ception of  nature  ?  In  strict  contemplation  of  philoso- 
phy, nature  is  that  established  constitution  and  course  of 

1  Cicero,  De  Deorum  Natura,  ii.  xxxii. 
16  . 


242  WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 

things  the  knowledge  of  which  we  gain  by  observation  or 
experience,  and  by  induction ;  whereas  that  which  we 
know  by  intuition,  or  establish  by  logic,  or  which  the  im- 
agination conceives,  lies  within  another  category.  Ob- 
serving certain  phenomena  in  regular  sequence,  we  learn 
by  experience  to  depend  upon  their  relations,  and  to  look 
for  their  repetition  ;  and  thus  we  ascertain,  for  example, 
that  it  is  the  nature  of  fire  to  burn,  and  the  nature  of 
water  to  expand  with  heat  and  to  freeze  with  cold.  Ex- 
tending the  range  of  such  observations  and  inductions, 
we  find  an  established  course  or  order  of  things  in  gen- 
eral, and  this  we  terra  nature.  But  that  Avhicii  makes 
the  observation,  records  the  experience,  classifies  the  in- 
duction, call  this  what  we  may,  —  whether  a  spiritual  en- 
tity or  the  functional  activity  of  the  brain,  —  though  it 
mav  have  a  nature  of  its  own,  is  not  included  within  that 
nature  of  whose  phenomena  it  thus  takes  cognizance. 
From  a  higher  plane  of  vision  the  observer  might  per- 
haps be  comprehended  within  the  scope  of  nature  ;  but 
to  him  nature  is  confined  within  the  periphery  of  things^ 
from  which  he,  at  least  quoad  hoc,  is  distinguished  as 
a  person.  Hence  in  worshiping  nature,  whether  as  a 
whole  or  in  detail,  the  worshiper  sets  before  him,  either 
in  visible  form  or  as  a  conception,  an  object  separate  from 
himself,  to  which  he  renders  his  homage  and  devout  re- 
gard. In  nature-worship,  religion  takes  its  hue  from  the 
phases  of  physical  phenomena  as  these  are  reflected  in 
the  phases  of  the  mind.  Sometimes  it  is  the  propitiation 
of  terrible  and  hurtful  elements  ;  again  it  is  the  worship 
of  sensuous  beauty  ;  ^  and,  with  a  more  advanced  culture, 
it  becomes  the  homage  of  reason  to  material  laws,  and  of 
the  imagination  to  the  divinity  immanent  in  tiie  universe 
as  a  soul  ;  now  its  prevailing  sentiment  is  an  awe  of  phe- 

*  "  The  Homeric  gods  spoil  no  man's  full  enjoyment  of  the  de- 
sires of  his  senses."  —  Curtius,  Ilixtory  of  Greece,  bk.  i.  G4. 


HUMANISM.  243 

nomena  which  suggest  mysterious  and  destructive  forces ; 
and  again,  this  feeling  of  reverence  is  modulated  in  art 
and  worship. to  a  delight  in  whatever  ministers  to  taste, 
beauty,  love,  as  being  either  a  divinity  or  some  divine  at- 
tribute or  gift.  In  a  word,  the  extremes  of  superstition 
and  naturalism  meet  in  nature  as  the  central  object  of 
the  religious  idea.  Religion  is,  then,  either  the  worship 
of  objects  and  forces  in  the  material  world  as  themselves 
divinities,  or  the  symbols  of  divinities;  or  it  is  a  ration- 
alistic atheism,  which  makes  nature,  or  the  universe  in 
its  totality,  the  only  power  above  man ;  or  again,  it  is  a 
sentimental,  poetic  personification  of  the  grand  and  beau- 
tiful in  the  physical  universe  ;  or,  it  may  be,  a  subtile 
pantheism,  which  denies  to  its  divinity  personality  and 
independence,  and  holds  the  unconscious  world-principle 
bound  within  the  visible  universe,  as  the  life-principle  is 
imprisoned  within  bodily  forms.  Thus  nature-religion, 
starting  from  fetichism,  runs  at  last  into  sheer  neuterxsm^ 
the  favorite  form  of  modern  pantheism  —  "  modern  "  in 
a  certain  freshness  of  assertion  by  recent  schools  of  phi- 
losophy, but  not  modern  as  a  theory  of  the  universe, 
since  Pliny  held  that  the  world  and  the  heaven,  or  uni- 
versal ether,  which  embraces  all  things  in  its  vast  circum- 
ference, may  be  regarded  as  itself  a  deity,  immense,  eter- 
nal, never  made,  and  never  to  perish ;  and  the  Stoics 
declared  that  "  God  is  the  world,  and  the  world  is  God  ; 
God  is  all  matter  and  all  mind." 

Where  man  is  made  the  chief  factor  in  the  world- 
scheme,  the  type  of  religion  is  Humanism,  whether  as 
hero-worship  or  a  divinized  selfhood.  To  that  spiritual 
worship  of  the  invisible  and  unknown  God  which  the 
Hellenic  races  shared  with  other  branches  of  the  xVryan 
family,  and  to  the  individualizing  of  divine  attributes 
and  powers  as  themselves  separate  and  local  divinities, 
the  Greeks  added  myths  of  heroes  whom  they  first  rever- 


244  WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 

enced  as  nearer  to  the  gods  in  gifts  and  powers,  and 
afterwards  worshiped  witii  divine  honors.  These  heroes 
personified  successive  acts  and  periods  in  the  develop- 
ment of  man  above  nature ;  ^  and  yet  the  deified  human- 
ity of  the  Greeks  was  still,  in  some  sort,  under  bondage 
to  nature  through  the  doctrine  of  fate,  or  through  that 
dread  of  mysterious  and  destructive  forces  which  over- 
Langs  the  religions  of  paganism. 

By  conquering  this  dread  of  nature,  modern  science 
has  ministered  to  a  yet  bolder  man-worship.  A  supreme 
selfhood,  an  intensified  egoism,  characterizes  much  of  the 
rationalism  of  our  time.  Humanity  and  reason  alone  are 
divine,  and  worship  is  homage  to  human  nature.  "  In- 
effable," says  Emerson,  "  is  the  union  of  man  and  God 
in  every  act  of  the  soul.  The  simplest  person  who  in 
his  integrity  worships  God,  becomes  God."  The  highest 
theology  of  this  school  is  man  divinized. 

Such  are  the  results  of  an  exaggeration  either  of  na- 
ture or  of  man,  as  terms  in  the  schemfe  of  religion.  But 
there  is  also  a  conception  of  God  which  relegates  Him  to 
the  sphere  of  the  past  or  the  unknown,  as  an  abstraction 
or  a  fate,  not  personally  cognizant  of  human  affairs,  not 
providentially  acting  in  them  —  a  deism  which  postu- 
lates nothing  concerning  the  Deity  but  the  infinite  and 
the  absolute,  and  ends  with  making  of  God  an  infinite 
and  absolute  nothing.  "  God  is  a  name  for  our  igno- 
rance." For  God  is  nothii^  to  a  man  as  a  conception 
unless  He  is  conceived  of  as  an  objective,  substantive 
reality,  possessing  personality,  will,  holiness,  and  author- 
ity ;  and  God  is  nothing  to  us  as  the  cause  of  nature  un- 
less He  is  the  author  of  nature  in  a  sense  which  distin- 
guishes Him  from  nature,  and  sets  Him  above  nature  as 
the  intelligent  and  controlling  cause  of  all  things. 

^  Thus  Heracles,  Cadmus,  the  Argonauts,  Danaus,  etc.  This 
point  is  well  treated  by  Curtius,  History  of  Greece,  i.  2. 


CONSTANCY  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEA.         245 

Yet  this  view  may  be  so  exaggerated  upon  the  other 
side,  that  God  becomes  the  Deu»  ex  machind ;  and  the 
miracle  or  the  intervention  is  ever  at  hand  to  supply  any 
defect  of  observation  or  of  logic  upon  the  facts  of  nature. 
And  so,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  religion  may  be  fal- 
sified by  introducing  into  it  too  much  of  God  !  It  is 
through  this  tendency  to  use  the  name  of  God  as  a  dog- 
matic formula,  and  to  resort  to  the  supernatural  as  an 
expedient  for  solving  all  mysteries  in  nature,  that  some 
theologians  have  brought  religion  into  a  seeming  contra- 
diction of  science. 

But  our  analysis  has  shown  that  under  all  forms  of 
conception  and  representation  the  religious  idea  is  con- 
stantly the  same.  Religion  is  an  inner  sense  of  obliga- 
tion in  man  to  an  external  object  of  a  nature  different 
from  his  own^  which  is  regarded  as  superior  in  nature, 
position,  or  power  ;  which  obligation  prompts  to  acts  of 
reverence,  devotion,  or  obedience,  with  a  view  to  please  or 
to  placate  its  object.  Recalling  our  definition  of  science, 
we  see  how  readily  religion  falls  within  these  limits  — 
the  systematic  summation  of  all  the  knowledges  pertain- 
ing to  a  given  subject-matter,  and  the  formulating  of 
these  in  abstract  general  conceptions.  Physical  science 
purports  to  concern  itself  exclusively  with  things  ;  but, 
in  reality,  science  is  not  concerned  directly  with  things, 
but  with  our  thoughts  of  things.  Professor  Jevons  has 
shown  that  "  scientific  method  must  begin  and  end  with 
the  laws  of  thought,"  and  we  cannot  better  conclude  this 
reference  of  religion  to  the  categories  of  science  than  by 
quoting  the  words  with  which  Jevons  concludes  the  sec- 
ond edition  of  his  "  Principles  of  Science."  ^ 

"  Among  the  most  unquestionable  rules  of  scientific  method  is 
that  first  law  that  whatever  phenomenon  is,  is.     We  must  ignore 

^  A   Treatise   on  Logic   and    Scientifc   Method.     By  W.  Stanley 

Jevons.     187  7. 


246  WHAT  IS  RELIGION? 

no  existence  whatever  ;  we  may  variously  interpret  or  explain 
its  meauijig  and  origin  ;  but  if  a  plienoinenou  does  exist,  it  de- 
mands some  kind  of  explanation.  If,  then,  there  is  to  be  com- 
petition for  scientific  recognition,  the  world  without  us  must 
yield  to  the  undoubted  existence  of  the  spirit  within.  Our  own 
hopes  and  wishes  and  determinations  are  the  most  undoubted 
phenomena  within  the  sphere  of  consciousness.  If  men  do  act, 
feel,  and  live  as  if  they  were  not  merely  the  brief  products  of  a 
casual  conjunction  of  atoms,  but  the  instruments  of  a  far-search- 
ing purpose,  are  we  to  record  all  other  phenomena  and  pass 
over  these?  We  investigate  the  instincts  of  the  ant  and  the 
bee  and  the  beaver,  and  discover  that  they  are  led  by  an  inscru- 
table agency  to  work  lowards  a  distant  purpose.  Let  us  be 
faithful  to  our  scientific  method,  and  investigate  also  those  in- 
stincts of  the  human  mind  by  which  man  is  led  to  work  as  if 
the  approval  of  a  Higher  Being  were  the  aim  of  life." 


XL 

CHRIST,   THE   CHURCH,  AND   THE   CREED. 

(A  Letter  to  a  Professor  of  Philology  in  Berlin,  December  25,  1877.) 

The  interest  you  so  kindly  expressed  in  what  I  said  to 
you  the  other  day,  of  the  use  of  the  "  Apostles'  Creed  " 
in  the  churches  of  the  United  States,  and  the  request  of 
several  German  friends  that  I  would  bring  this  American 
usage  into  public  notice  here,  prompt  me  to  address  to 
you,  by  your  courtesy,  the  following  statement  of  princi- 
ples and  usages  concerning  confessions  of  faith,  especially 
among  churches  of  the  Congregational  order,  in  America. 
Let  me  here  explicitly  disclaim  any  thought  of  entering 
into  the  discussion  of  the  "  Hossbach  case,"  or  of  the  dif- 
ferences that  now  agitate  the  Evangelical  Church  of  Prus- 
sia. I  know  too  well  the  warning  of  Solomon  to  him 
"  that  meddleth  with  strife  belonging  not  to  him  !  "  At 
the  same  time,  all  Christian  men,  of  whatever  church  or 
country,  have  a  common  interest  in  the  preservation  of 
Christian  truth  and  Christian  liberty ;  and  at  a  moment 
when  the  foundations  of  all  belief  are  assailed  by  mate- 
rialisiu,  and  the  exercise  of  all  liberty  is  threatened  by 
ultramontanism,  he  who  seeks  the  unity  of  the  Church  in 
love,  above  its  uniformity  in  dogma,  is  not  a  meddler  but 
a  mediator. 

I.  In  treating  of  confessions  of  faith,  we  must  not  lose 
sight  of  the  distinction  between  that  simple  confession 
which,  according  to  the  New  Testament,  is  necessary  to 
personal  salvation,  and  the  formal  confessions  which  may 


248       CHRIST,   THE  CHURCH,  AND  THE  CREED. 

be  expedient  for  ecclesiastical  organization.  If  we  inquire 
what  confession  the  Apostles  made  the  condition  of  per- 
sonal salvation,  we  find  this  always  one  and  the  same  : 
*'  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  thou  shalt  be 
saved."  Upon  that  confession,  Peter,  acting  in  the  full 
inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  baptized  three  thousand 
on  the  day  of  Pentecost.  On  that  confession,  Philip  bap- 
tized the  eunuch  of  Ethiopia.  On  that  confession  Paul 
baptized  the  jailer  of  Philippi.  Jesus  liimself  declared 
that  the  substance  of  all  faith  was  to  believe  on  Hina  as 
the  Son  of  God.  This  was  the  simple  Christian  confession 
upon  which  whoever  should  believe  it  from  the  heart 
should  be  baptized  and  received  into  the  fellowship  of  the 
disciples  of  Christ.  No  apostle  added  anything  to  this 
as  an  article  of  saving  faith.  And  what  the  Apostles  for- 
bore to  do,  no  pope,  priest,  presbytery,  council,  consistory, 
or  church  may  presume  to  do  —  to  add  anytliing  to  the 
one  simple  condition  of  salvation  which  Christ  himself 
laid  down.  "  As  many  as  received  Him,  to  them  gave  He 
power  to  become  the  sons  of  God,  even  to  tlieni  that  be- 
lieve on  his  name."  (John  i.  12.)  All  who  thus  believe, 
—  be  they  Catholic  or  Protestant,  Churchmen  or  Quak- 
ers —  are  by  Christ's  own  warrant  members  of  "  the  body 
of  Christ,"  are  in  and  of  *'  the  commujiion  of  saints," 
whi«h  is  the  one  holy  and  universal  Church.  No  one  of 
these,  nor  any  number  of  these,  can  deny  to  any  other 
such  believer  his  title  to  fellowship  in  the  communion 
of  saints,  and  to  "  an  inheritance  among  all  them  which 
are  sanctified."  Peter,  speaking  for  all  the  disciples, 
saifl,  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God." 
And  Jesus  answered,  "  Upon  this  rock  will  I  build  my 
Church  ;  "  not  upon  Peter  as  a  person  ;  but  taking  his 
name  as  a  symbol,  Jesus  changed  from  the  masculine 
name  IIcVpo?  to  the  feminine  term  TreVpa ;  thus  clearly 
meaning,  "  Upon  this  confession  a«  a  rock.,  upon  this  firm 


THE   USE  OF  A   CREED.  249 

and  unchanging  confession  of  me  as  the  Son  of  God,  will 
I  build  my  Church."  With  Congregational ists  this  con- 
fession is  fundamental  to  the  conception  of  the  Church 
of  Christ  as  one,  as  spiritual,  as  universal  and  perpetual  ; 
and  this  is  the  only  confession  which  is  absolute  and  ex- 
clusive for  personal  salvation. 

But  Congregational  ists  recognize  the  fact,  that  to  give 
expression  to  Christian  faith,  and  to  facilitate  the  com- 
munion of  believers  and  the  propagation  of  the  gospel, 
some  visible  ecclesiastical  organization  is  requisite ;  and 
the  unity  and  efficiency  of  such  an  organization  demand 
that  its  members  shall  be  in  substantial  accord  in  matters 
of  doctrine,  of  regimen,  and  of  practice.  Hence  it  may 
be  expedient  for  such  an  organization  —  that  is  for  a  par- 
ticular church  —  to  adopt  a  formula  of  faith  more  in  de- 
tail than  the  simple  confession  appointed  by  Christ  and 
required  by  the  Apostles  for  baptism  into  the  communion 
of  Christian  believers.  Where,  as  in  England  and  in  the 
United  States,  there  is  perfect  liberty  of  ecclesiastical  or- 
ganization under  the  state,  Christians  of  like  views  and 
tastes  in  regard  to  doctrine  and  worship  will  gravitate 
toward  one  another,  and  various  churches  will  arise  hav- 
ing a  substantial  unity  in  faith  under  a  diversity  of  forms. 
The  liberty  conceded  to  particular  churches  of  framing 
their  own  confession  and  liturgy  —  as  was  done  for  in- 
stance by  the  Evangelical  Church  of  Prussia  —  has  been 
found  by  experience  to  conserve  purity  of  doctrine  as  welL 
as  peace  of  communion. 

Such  particular  creeds  have  also  their  uses  for  the  defi- 
nition and  explication  of  Christian  doctrine ;  but,  at  this 
point,  care  should  be  taken  that  these  are  not  substituted 
for  that  simple  faith  in  Christ  which  is  the  token  of  sal- 
vation, nor  made  damnatory  against  those  who  cannot 
accept  their  phraseology  in  detail.  Where  the  attitude 
of  the  State  toward  the  Church,  or  the  habit  of  society, 


250       CniilST,   THE  CHURCH,  AND  THE   CREED. 

does  not  favor  the  organization  of  separate  churches,  and 
especially  where  membership  in  the  Church  is  compulsory 
by  law  or  by  custom,  there  should  be  the  more  liberty  of 
dissent  within  the  Church  itself.  "  Him  that  is  weak  in 
the  faith  receive  ye,  but  not  to  doubtful  disputations." 
(Rom.  xiv.  1.) 

II.  The  place  assigned  to  a  creed  in  any  particular 
church  will   be   determined   largely  by  the  basis   upon 
which   that  church  itself  is  supposed  to  stand.     If   the 
Church  stands  upon  dogmatic  history  and  tradition  as  its 
foundation,  then  its  creed  may  be  taken  for  organic ;  but 
if  the  Church  stands  directly  upon  tlie  New  Testament  as 
its   organic  law,  then  the  creed  can  be  only  functional. 
The  foundation  of  the  Church  spiritual  and  universal  was 
laid  by  Christ  himself,  and  none  can  add  to  that  nor  take 
away  from  it.     •'  Other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than 
that   is  laid,  which  is  Jesus  Christ."     (1  Cor.  iii.  11.) 
But  particular  churches,  being  the  work  of  human  organ- 
ization, are  not  always  built  directly  and  solely  upon  this 
foundation.     Protestant   churches   profess    to    be  estab- 
lished  upon  the  New  Testament  as  their   fundamental 
law  ;  and  Luther  no  doubt  set  the  authority  of  the  Bible 
above  all  creeds.     But  some  churches  in  practice  appeal 
more  to  dogmatic  history  than  to  the  Bible  as  their  stand- 
ard of  belief  and  rule  of  discipline.     Now  it  is  of  great 
moment  to  our  conception  of  the  faith,  whether  we  come 
at  the  Bible  through  a  creed,  or  come  at  the  creed  through 
the  Bible.    The  creed  is  valuable  as  formulating  the  teach- 
ings of  the  Bible  in  a  scientific  method  ;  and  great  impor- 
tance should  be  attached   to  the  historical  continuity  of 
the  faith  through  eighteen  centuries.     But  a  creed  almost 
of  necessity  assumes  the  philosophic  language  of  the  age 
in  which  it  is  framed  ;  and  it  is  apt  to  give  emi)liasis  to 
controversial  statements  current  at   the  time.     Now  in 
theology,  as  in  other  sciences,  words  change  their  mean- 


PRACTICE  OF  THE  PILGRIM  FATHERS.  2.')l 

ing  with  the  progress  of  thought,  and  the  relative  mo- 
ment of  doctrines  changes  also  with  each  succeeding  age. 
Hence  to  impose  upon  the  Church  a  form  of  confession  as 
obligatory  for  all  ages  would  be  to  make  of  the  Church  a 
mere  symbolic  monument  in  the  stream  of  Time,  as  anti- 
quated for  the  purposes  of  a  living  Christian  society  as  is 
a  Catholic  cathedral  for  the  uses  of  a  Protestant  congre- 
gation. Where  a  church  is  built  upon  the  New  Testa- 
ment, creeds  may  well  serve  as  buttresses  to  the  faith  ; 
but  it  is  a  sorry  spectacle  when  the  Church  stands  as  a 
decaying  shell,  the  creed  projecting  only  in  grotesque 
gargoyles. 

Thus  to  stereotype  a  creed  in  antiquated  forms  of  ver- 
bal philosophy  is  to  rob  Christianity  of  ihaX  flexihilit y  of 
adaptation  which  distinguishes  it  from  all  other  religions 
as  the  religion  for  mankind,  of  all  races  and  in  all  ages. 
This  was  clearly  seen  by  the  Reformers  in  separating 
themselves  from  the  Romish  Church,  and  seen  more  clear- 
ly still  by  John  Robinson,  the  father  of  the  Congrega- 
tional polity,  in  separating  himself  from  the  Established 
Church  of  England.  This  remarkable  man,  honored  by 
the  University  of  Leyden  for  his  learning,  and  revered 
by  his  flock  for  his  piety,  was  pastor  of  the  band  of  Pil- 
grims which  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century 
went  over  from  England  to  Holland,  and  afterwards  emi- 
grated to  America.  The  governor  of  Plymouth  Colony 
has  left  on  record  the  parting  words  of  Robinson  to  the 
Pilgrims  as  they  set  sail  from  Leyden.  "  He  charged  us 
before  God  to  follow  him  no  farther  than  he  followed 
Christ ;  and  if  God  should  reveal  anything  to  us  by  any 
other  instrument  of  his,  to  be  ready  to  receive  it  as  ever 
we  were  to  receive  any  truth  by  his  ministry  ;  for  he  was 
very  confident  the  Lord  had  more  truth  and  light  yet  to 
break  forth  out  of  his  holy  Word.  He  took  occasion  also 
to  bewail  the  state  of  the  reformed  churches,  which  were 


252       CHRIST,  THE  CHURCH,  AND  THE  CREED. 

come  to  a  period  in  religion,  and  would  go  no  farther  than 
the  instruments  of  their  reformation.  The  Lutherans 
could  not  go  beyond  what  Luther  saw;  for,  whatever 
part  of  God's  word  He  had  farther  revealed  to  Calvin, 
they  had  rather  die  than  embrace  it ;  and  so  too  the  Cal- 
vinists,  — they  stick  where  he  left  them.  A  misery  much 
to  be  lamented  ;  for  though  they  were  precious  shining 
lights  in  their  times,  yet  God  had  not  revealed  his  whole 
will  to  them  ;  and  were  they  now  alive,  they  would  be 
as  ready  to  receive  further  light  as  that  they  had  received. 
For  it  is  not  possible  the  Christian  world  should  come  so 
lately  out  of  such  anti-Christian  darkness,  and  that  full 
perfection  of  knowledge  should  break  forth  at  once." 

What  noble  words  are  these  !  "  Truth  and  Light  ;  " 
this  is  science.  ^'■More  Truth  and  Light ;  "  this  is  prog- 
ress. "  The  Lord  will  cause  to  break  forth  ;"  this  is  faith. 
"Out  of  his  holy  Word  ;  "  this  is  law  and  authority.  By 
these  tests  we  may  determine  what  place  should  be  as- 
signed to  any  particular  creed. 

If  we  would  preserve  that  political  freedom  and  that 
freedom  of  science  for  which  our  age  has  struggled  so 
earnestly,  we  must  be  no  less  jealous  for  Christian  lib- 
erty, and  not  suffer  an  effete  patristic  philosophy  to  dog- 
matize in  the  Church,  against  the  simple  teachings  of 
Christ  and  the  conscientious  faith  of  any  who  have  re- 
ceived his  word. 

in.  I  come  now,  in  conclusion,  to  speak  of  the  so-called 
*'  Apostles'  Creed."  That  this  creed  was  composed  toti- 
dem  verbis  by  the  Apostles,  there  is  no  evid(;nce  to  sat- 
isfy the  critical  student  of  church  history.  Happily  we 
are  able  to  test  the  articles  of  this  confession  by  the  writ- 
ings of  the  Apostles  themselves.  .Though  in  the  Aqui- 
leian  Creed,  as  recorded  by  Rufinus,  we  find  the  articles 
of  the  descent  into  hell,  —  descendit  ad  inferna.,  —  and  the 
resurrection  of  the  flesh, — hujua  carnis  resurrectionem, — 


THE  APOSTLES'  CREED.  253 

yet  the  former  rests  upon  a  single  doubtful  passage  (1 
Peter  iii.  19),  and  the  second,  the  literal  rising  of  the 
fiesh.)  has  not  a  single  text  to  support  it  in  the  New  Tes- 
tainent.i  We  have  the  testimony  of  Ilufinus  himself  that 
the  clause  "  He  descended  into  hell "  came  into  the  creed 
at  a  late  period.  "  Sciendum  sane  est,  quod  in  ecclesise 
Romana)  symbolo  non  habetur  additum,  Descendit  ad  in- 
ferna,  sed  neque  in  Orientis  ecclesiis  habetur  hie  sermo  ; 
vis  tamen  verbi  eadem  videtur  esse  in  eo  quod  sepultus 
dicitur."     (Rufin.  Expos.  Symboli,  p.  22.) 

The  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States,  which  in 
doctrine  and  worship  corresponds  to  the  Established 
Church  of  England,  does  not  enforce  upon  its  clergy  the 
reading  of  this  article  in  the  public  service  of  the  Church. 
The  Liturgy  provides  that  "  any  churches  may  omit  the 
words.  He  descended  into  hell,  or  may,  instead  of  them, 
use  the  words,  He  went  into  the  place  of  departed  spirits, 
which  are  considered  as  words  of  the  same  meaning  in 
the  creed."  Here  is  a  wise  example  of  refraining  to  en- 
force through  a  creed  a  dogma  which  finds  such  doubtful 
warrant  in  the  writings  of  the  Apostles. 

The  "  Resurrection  of  t\i&  fiesh  "  is  nowhere  taught  by 
the  Apostles.  This  article  came  into  the  creed  as  a  pro- 
test against  Origen's  idealistic  view  of  the  resurrection ; 
yet  in  the  Nicene  Creed  we  do  not  find  this  doctrine,  but 
only  the  expectation  of  the  resurrection  of  the  dead; 
irpoa-BoKwfxev  dvaaTacni'  vcKpwv.  The  early  Christian  Fathers 
were  quite  as  much  given  to  metaphysical  speculation  as 
are  the  theologians  of  our  time,  and  were  no  less  liable  to 
prejudice  and  error.  They  foisted  into  creeds  their  met- 
aphysical definitions  of  doctrines,  and  these  often  framed 

1  In  the  German  this  article  reads  not  "body,"  but  "resurrection 
of  the  Jle^h  ;  "  and  a  party  in  the  Prussian  Church  seek  to  make  this 
gross  literal  notion  of  the  rising  of  the  natural  jlesh,  in  distinction 
from  a  bodily /on/i,  a  test  of  soundness  in  the  faith  ! 


254       CHRIST,  THE  CHURCH,  AND  THE  CREED. 

in  the  heat  of  controversy.  Why  then  should  we  enforce 
as  the  essential  faith  of  the  Church  such  definitions.,  no 
longer  tenable  in  the  light  of  science,  and  never  in  the 
least  supported  by  the  Scriptures  ? 

In  your  letter  to  Superintendent  Dr.  Briickneryou  said 
with  much  force  that  "  doctrines  about  Christ  have  been 
substituted  for  the  doctrine  0/ Christ ;"  and  in  like  man- 
ner the  so-called  Apostles'  Creed  has  been  substituted  for 
the  creed  of  the  Apostles. 

The  New  Testament  does  teach  the  resurrection  as  a 
fundamental  doctrine  of  the  Christian  system.  But  what 
is  the  resurrection  as  taught  by  Christ  and  the  Apostles? 

The  word  av6.(TTa(TL<;  (resurrection')  occurs  in  the  New 
Testament  as  follows:  in  the  Gospels  14  times,  in  the 
Acts  11  times,  in  the  Epistles  13  times,  in  the  llevelation 
twice.  In  several  of  these  passages  it  is  used  simply  of  the 
resurrection  of  Jesus  as  a  fact  and  a  simile.  In  ^latthew 
xxii.  31,  Mark  xii.  25,  Luke  xx.  35,  it  is  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead.,  twi'  veKpiav ;  in  Luke  xiv.  14,  the  resurrection 
of  the  just,  Tw;/  SiKatwi' ;  in  John  v.  29  the  resurrection  of 
lij'e,  $03rj<i  and  of  condemnation,  Kpiirew; ;  and  in  John  xi.  24, 
25  simply  the  resurrection  at  the  last  day.  There  is  not 
one  solitary  case  in  the  New  Testament  where  the  res- 
urrection is  spoken  of  as  a  resurrection  of  the  fiesh,  (Tap$ ; 
nor  even  of  the  body,  a-wfxa ;  and  this  notion  is  contrary 
to  the  teachings  of  Paul.  In  his  speech  on  Mars'  Hill, 
and  in  his  defenses  of  himself  at  Jerusalem  (Acts  xvii. 
32,  xxiii.  6,  xxiv.  15,  21),  Paul  speaks  expressly  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead.  And  in  his  great  argument  for 
the  resurrection,  1  Cor.  xv.,  Paul  speaks  four  times  of  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead,  but  not  once  of  the  resuri*ection 
of  the  Jiesh.  This  indeed  he  virtually  denies.  He  sup- 
poses some  one  to  ask,  "  How  are  the  dead  raised  up  ? 
and  with  what  body  do  they  come?"  And  he  answers 
triumphantly,  "  It  is  sown  a  natural  body,  it  is  r.iised  a 


THE  RESURRECTION  OF  THE  DEAD.  255 

spiritual  bod}'."  Tliis  spiritual  body,  though  it  shall 
possess  individuality  and  shall  give  assurance  of  personal 
identity,  shall  not  be  the  same  mortal  flesh  tliat  was 
sown,  for  "flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit  the  kingdom 
of  God." 

The  English  version  of  the  Apostles'  Creed,  "  I  believe 
in  the  resurrection  of  the  Body.,''  is  better  than  the  Ger- 
man reading  of  the  resurrection  of  the  Jlesh  ;  but  it  would 
be  far  better  to  adopt  the  grand,  inspiring  phrase  of  the 
Nicene  Creed,  "  I  look  for  the  Resurrection  of  tlie  dead, 
and  the  Life  of  the  world  to  come."     If  our  preaching 
had  more  of  Paul's  largeness  of  thought  and  breadth  of 
charity,  I  am  confident  it  would  attract  to  the  Church 
men  of  intelligence  and  science,  who  are  now  repelled  by 
the  narrowness  of   dogmatic   speculation  and  the  anti- 
quated phraseology  of  a  creed.     "  The  letter  killeth,  but 
the  Spirit  giveth   life  ;  "  and  "  where  the  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  is,  there  is  liberty."     My  training  as  a  Congrega- 
tionalist  has  taught  me  to  honor  the  great  lights  of  the 
Church  in  every  age;  to   accept    truth    from   whatever 
source  it  may  come;  but  to  acknowledge  no  authority 
for  Christian  doctrine  but  the  New  Testament.     Hence 
in  seeking  comfort  concerning  the  dear  departed,   and 
hope  for  myself  in  view  of  death,  I  do  not  pin  my  faith 
upon  any  theory  of  the  resurrection  as  put  forth  by  Ire- 
noeus,  Justin,  Tertullian,  in  the  period  of  Apologetics,  but 
go  back  to  the  promise  of  Jesus  and  the  grand  argument 
of  Paul.     How  the  dead  are  raised  up  1  know  not,  any 
more  than  I  know  how  grass  grows,  or  how  God  exists. 
What  is  that  "  spiritual  body  "  of  which  Paul  speaks,  I 
can  no  more  conceive  than  I  can  conceive  how  my  spirit 
and  body  now  act  as  one.     But  we  may  rationally  be- 
lieve upon  evidence  that  which  we  cannot  fully  explain. 
This  we  do  constantly  in  the  facts  of  science,  of  history, 
and  of  daily  life.     And  feeling  as  sure  that  Jesus  rose 


256       CHRIST,  THE  CHURCH,  AND  THE  CREED. 

from  the  dead  as  that  he  was  crucified  and  buried,  I  rest 
upon  his  own  declaration  as  my  all  sufficient  hope  :  "  This 
is  the  will  of  Him  that  sent  me,  that  every  one  which 
seeth  the  Son,  and  believeth  on  Him,  may  have  everlast- 
ing life  ;  and  I  will  raise  him  up  at  the  last  day."  (John 
vi.  40.) 


xir. 

LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

MATEUIALISM  AND  THEISM  TESTED  BY  THE  NATUUE  AND  THE 
NEEDS  OF  MAN. 

(An  Address  delivered  in  the  American  Chapel,  Berlin,  on  Thanksgiving  Day, 
November  25,  1875.) 

The  fiivor  with  which  you  have  received  two  Thanks- 
giving addresses  seemed  to  bring  me  under  obligation  to 
accept  your  invitation  for  a  third,  in  the  hope  that  this 
might  at  least  serve  for  the  utterance  of  such  sentiments 
of  gratitude,  fellowship,  and  devotion,  as  to-day  are  com- 
mon to  us  all.  With  your  hearts  quickened  by  the  an- 
ticipations of  the  coming  yeai',  you  might  naturally  ex- 
pect that  the  grateful  memories  of  a  hundred  years  would 
find  vent  to-daj'  in  an  outburst  of  patriotic  joy.  But 
everything  in  its  season.  That  debt  of  gratitude  is  so 
great,  so  high,  so  deep,  that  I  shall  not  presume  to  dis- 
count it  in  advance.  Let  it  come  with  its  whole  weight 
to  the  heart  of  the  whole  nation,  in  the  year  and  the  day 
that  Time  has  marked  as  one  of  the  most  bright  and 
blessed  in  its  calendar.^ 

1  In  commemoration  of  the  first  century  of  the  existence  of  the 
United  States  as  a  nation,!  propose  to  give  a  course  of  lectures  upon 
the  followin<i  topics  :  — 

I.  The  Grounds  and  Motives  of  the  American  Revolution. 

II.  The  Doctrines  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

III.  The  Adoption  of  the  Constitution,  —  Washington  as  Head  of 
the  Nation. 

17 


258  LUCIiETWS  OR  PAUL. 

As  in  the  days  of  chivalry,  he  who  would  be  enrolled 
a  knight  spent  the  hours  preceding  his  investiture  in  acts 
of  devotion  in  the  chapel,  so  if  we  would  be  found  worthy 
to  bear  aloft  the  shield  of  liberty  decked  with  the  gar- 
lands of  the  century,  we  should  give  ourselves  the  rather 
now  to  studies  and  acts  of  devotion,  which  shall  lead  us 
to  the  source  of  all  gratitude,  the  theme  of  all  praise. 

To  Americans  no  sentiment  is  more  normal  or  more 
patriotic  than  the  recognition  of  God  in  their  history. 
The  words  with  which  Washington  opened  his  first  ad- 
dress to  the  first  Congress  assembled  under  the  Constitu- 
tion have  but  gained  in  emphasis  with  succeeding  years. 
"  No  people,"  said  he,  "  can  be  bound  to  acknowledge 
Q,nd  adore  the  Invisible  Hand  which  conducts  the  affairs 
of  men  more  than  the  people  of  the  United  States.  Ev- 
ery step  by  which  they  have  advanced  to  the  character 
of  an  independent  nation  seems  to  have  been  attended 
with  some  token  of  providential  agency  ; "  and  he  who 
had  won  the  independence  of  the  nation,  had  shaped  its 
Constitution,  and  was  now  to  order  its  administration, 
called  upon  Congress  and  the  people  to  join  with  him, 
not  in  patriotic  exultation,  but  in  "  pious  gratitude." 

Two  years  ago  I  spoke  of  the  reasons  we  have  for  Na- 
tional Thanksgiving,  as  Americans  residing  in  a  foreign 
country  ;  last  year,  of  the  Heroic  Age  of  America  and 
our  grateful  pride  in  our  fathers.  The  matter  of  these 
addresses  was  objective  —  critical  and  historical ;  but 
underneath  them  both  was  the  religious  assumption  that 
from  whatever  point  we  view  our  country  we  are  called 

IV.  The  Nation  tested  by  the  Vicissitudes  of  a  Century. 

V.  The  Nation  judged  by  its  own  Development  and  its  Services 
to  Mankind. 

VI.  The  Perils,  Duties,  and  Hopes  of  the  Opening  Century. 
These  lectures  will   be   given    in    Sachxe^'i    Kunxtsalon,    Tauben- 

Strasse  34,  on  Monday  and  Friday  evenings,  commencing  Monday, 
February  21st,  1876.     [These  lectures  were  subsequently  printed.] 


THEISM   OR  MATERIALISM,  THE  ISSUE.         259 

to   gratitude,  and    that  this   gratitude   luis   at   once   its 
source  and  its  end  in  the  loving  care  of  a  living  Father. 

Let  me  now  attempt  to  lead  you  up  to  this  highest 
view  of  thanksgiving,  a  view  in  which  rest  all  reasons  of 
thanksgiving  for  ourselves  and  our  country,  and  which 
is  equally  present  and  imperative  at  home  and  abroad, 

—  God  here,  God  there,  God  then  and  now  and  always, 

—  the  living  Father  with  his  loving  care. 

But  is  God  here,  there,  everywhere  ?  Is  He  any- 
where ?  or  is  He  nowhere  ?  Around  this  question  of  a 
personal  God  the  battle  rages  most  fiercely  in  the  world 
of  modern  thought,  and  if  we  look  to  the  clouds,  as  in  the 
battle  of  the  Huns,  we  there  see  the  ghosts  of  ancient 
philosophy  still  fighting  over  the  same  field.  A  personal 
God,  Creator,  Governor,  Redeemer,  Father,  or,  matter, 
force,  motion,  evolution,  and  final  extinction,  —  this  was 
the  issue  in  the  last  generation  in  the  sphere  of  meta- 
physics, renewed  in  our  time  in  the  sphere  of  physics,  — 
in  one  word,  theism  or  materialism,  the  issue  which  must 
determine  whether  thanksgiving  is  a  reasonable  virtue  or 
a  foolish  superstition. 

I  need  make  no  apology  for  handling  such  a  question 
before  an  audience  having  more  than  an  average  of 
thinkers,  and  more  than  an  average  of  training  in  the 
facts  of  science  and  the  laws  of  thought,  and  especially 
before  minds  whose  course  of  study  brings  them  in  con- 
tact with  materialism,  either  tacitly  assumed  or  plausibly 
presented  almost  as  a  synonym  of  science.  But  in  pro- 
pounding this  theme,  I  do  not  propose  to  make  a  scien- 
tific disquisition,  nor  to  enter  the  field  of  modern  contro- 
versy ;  but  taking  the  materialistic  and  theistic  schemes 
of  the  universe  as  stated  by  the  foremost  advocates  of 
each  in  ancient  times,  to  test  them  severally  in  their 
adaptation  to  man,  as  an  explication  both  of  himself  aud 
of  that  order  of  things  with  which  he  is  inseparably  con- 


260  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

nected.  This  test  is  strictly  scientific.  Science  would 
not  accept  as  a  definition  of  a  tiling  or  a  ci*eature  a  state- 
ment that  failed  to  include  or  account  for  some  of  its 
most  distinguishing  properties  ;  nor  would  science  record 
as  a  law  a  formula  that  did  not  fairly  cover  all  the  char- 
acteristic and  undeviating  phenomena  of  the  subject-mat- 
ter. Kow,  man  is  a  creature  of  a  certain  characteristic 
and  undeviating  constitution  as  to  its  essential  elements 
and  their  normal  manifestation ;  he  is  capable  of  obser- 
vation, understanding,  reason,  imagination,  emotion,  af- 
fection, volition,  moral  judgment,  as  truly  and  universally 
as  he  is  capable  of  growth,  speech,  nutrition,  and  locomo- 
tion. Also,  the  order  of  things  witii  which  he  stands 
connected  —  call  it  nature,  the  cosmos,  the  universe  — 
addresses  itself  not  only  to  his  bodily  senses,  but  to  each 
and  all  of  these  capacities  or  faculties  that  go  to  make  up 
the  man.  The  scenes  and  sounds  that  impress  his  organs 
of  sight  and  hearing  address  themselves  also  to  his  imagi- 
nation and  taste  ;  excite  within  him  joy,  fear,  hope,  mem- 
ory, love;  move  him  to  action,  or  lull  him  to  repose. 
What  an  unscientific  absurdity,  then,  is  a  scheme  of  the 
universe  which  would  define  its  origin,  its  nature,  and  its 
workings  simply  through  its  impression  upon  the  phys- 
ical senses  of  man,  or  as  known  to  his  observation,  and 
should  leave  quite  out  of  account  the  rich  and  manifold 
aptitudes  of  the  universe  to  the  nature  of  man  as  a  being 
of  thought  and  imagination,  of  emotion  and  desire,  of 
affection  and  will  ?  How  shallow  the  pretense  to  science, 
in  a  definition  of  the  universe,  that  should  ignore  all  its 
relations  to  the  nobler  and  better  part  of  man. 

It  is  to  this  test  of  the  universe  as  related  to  man  and 
man  as  related  to  the  universe,  that  I  propose  to  submit 
the  schemes  of  materialism  and  theism.  In  the  state- 
ment of  these  schemes  I  shall  take  for  each  its  foremost 
representative,  Lucretius  and  Paul ;  each  in  his  kind  the 


THE  LEARNING  OF  PAUL.  261 

liigliest  type  of  man.  I  take  these  because,  while  they 
can  be  contemphited  apart  from  the  prejudices  and  pas- 
sions of  contemporary  disputants,  they  are  also  fairly 
balanced,  and  are  unsurpassed  by  any  of  the  whole  race 
of  philosophers,  be  they  scientists  or  sciolists,  of  to-day. 
Lucretius  and  Paul  were  alike  in  the  rare  combination  in 
equal  measure  of  the  logical  and  the  imaginative  facul- 
ties ;  strong-armed  for  blows  of  argument,  strong-winged 
for  flights  of  poetr}'.  They  were  alike  in  the  love  of 
truth,  in  the  desire  to  free  mankind  from  superstition 
and  error,  and  in  courage  to  avow  their  opinions  and 
obey  their  convictions.  They  were  alike  in  seeking  the 
foundation  of  things,  and  from  this  to  grasp  the  infinite, 
and  with  thought  and  fancy  to  girdle  the  universe. 
Nearly  contemporary,  —  Lucretius  having  died  barely 
fifty  years  before  Paul  was  born,  —  they  both  grew  up 
amid  the  culture  of  the  Roman  empire  in  its  most  brill- 
iant and  classic  age.  That  Lucretius  enjoyed  this  cul- 
ture, his  poem  furnishes  intrinsic  evidence  in  its  mastery 
at  once  of  Greek  philosophy  and  of  Latin  verse,  which 
last,  indeed,  he  perfected,  as  did  Shakespeare  the  English 
and  Goethe  the  German. 

Paul,  too,  had  the  best  culture  of  his  time:  first,  at 
Antioch,  then  a  foremost  seat  of  learning  ;  next  at  Je- 
rusalem, in  the  famous  school  of  Gamaliel,  where  were 
taught  not  only  the  history  and  laws  of  Judaism,  but 
philosophy,  science,  literature  from  every  quarter,  espe- 
cially from  the  East."  ^  That  Paul  was  a  man  of  intel- 
lectual rank  is  evident,  not  only  from  the  thought  and 
style  of  his  writings,  but  from  his  being  intrusted  at  an 

1  In  the  higher  schools  of  Palestine  were  taught  law,  ethics,  his- 
tory, grammar,  languages  (Coptic,  Aramaic,  Persian,  Median,  Latin, 
Greek),  mathematics,  astronomy,  botany,  zoology,  etc.  See  a  full 
account  of  these  schools  in  the  Literary  Remains  of  Emanuel  Deutsch, 
pp.  21-25,  and  140. 


262  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

early  age  with  high  responsibilities  by  the  leaders  of  his 
nation  ;  by  his  familiarity  with  Greek  philosophy  and 
Greek  authors,  as  shown  for  instance  at  Athens  and  Lys- 
tra  ;  and  by  his  "  disputing  in  the  school  of  one  Tyran- 
nus ; "  ^  and  that  he  was  of  a  scholarly  habit  appears 
from  his  message  to  Timothy,  "  The  cloak  that  I  left  at 
Troas  bring  with  thee,  and  the  books  —  but  especially 
the  parchments,"  2  which  he  had  written  or  needed  for 
writing.  He  could  ill  afford  to  lose  an  outer  garment, 
but,  like  a  German  professor,  he  cared  more  for  books, 
.and  especially  his  own  writings,  than  for  clothes ! 

Of  Lucretius  it  must  be  said  that  he  not  only  wrought 
out  the  doctrine  of  materialism  with  a  completeness  of 
statement  and  profuseness  of  illustration  not  attained  by 
any  of  his  predecessors,  but  also  made  his  system  of  the 
universe  so  comprehensive  that  modern  materialists  have 
added  absolutely  nothing  to  his  conception,  but  have 
simply  confirmed  at  certain  points,  by  observation  and 
experiment,  what  he  had  reasoned  out  from  his  specula- 
tive postulates.^ 

»  Acts  xix.  9.  2  2  Tim.  iv.  33. 

•  Too  little  is  known  of  the  life  of  Lucretius  to  enable  us  to  ju(l<;e 
how  far  be  subjected  his  philosophical  theories  to  experimental  tests. 
His  poem  exhibits  a  perfect  accjuaintance  with  the  discoveries  and 
opinions  of  the  Greek  philosophers,  and  a  minute  observance  of  Na- 
ture as  to  her  more  patent  phenomena.  But  of  experimental  obser- 
vation, —  what  the  Friar  of  Messina  styled 

"  Observation 
Which  with  experimental  seal  doth  warrant 
The  tenor  of  my  book,"  — 

Lucretius  seems  to  have  had  little  or  none.  The  lack  of  facility 
for  this  makes  his  system  the  more  wonderful,  as  a  structure  of  vast 
and  logical  consistency,  a  metaphysical  creation  to  so  many  parts  of 
which  physical  observation  has  now  put  its  "experimental  seal." 
Thus,  as  to  the  properties  of  vacuum  Lucretius  argues  not  from  ex- 
periments in  an  artificial  void,  but  abstractly,  from  the  nature  of 
void  —  "  sua  quod  natura  petit." —  L.  ii.  237. 


MODERN  SCIENCE  ANTICIPATED  BY  LUCRETIUS.    2G3 

Did  Galileo  demonstrate  that  in  a  vacuum  all  bodies 
fall  through  equal  spaces  in  equal  times?  Lucretius  had 
already  said  that  "  whenever  bodies  fall  throuf^li  water 
and  thin  air,  they  must  quicken  their  descents  in  pro- 
portion to  their  weights,  because  the  body  of  water  and 
subtle  nature  of  air  cannot  retard  everything  in  equal 
degree,  but  more  readily  give  way,  overpowered  by  the 
heavier ;  on  the  other  hand,  empty  void  cannot  offer  re- 
sistance to  anything  in  any  direction  at  any  time,  but 
must,  as  its  nature  craves,  continually  give  way ;  and  for 
this  reason  all  things  must  be  moved  and  borne  along 
with  equal  velocity  though  of  unequal  weights  tlirough 
the  unresisting  void."  ^  Has  modern  astronomy,  by  the 
most  rigorous  test  of  calculation  and  of  instruments,  set- 
tled upon  the  nebular  hypothesis  as  the  most  phiusible 
explanation  of  the  formation  of  the  masses  of  the  planets, 
their  rotation,  their  rings  and  satellites,  and  also  of  the 
asteroids  and  comets  ?  Lucretius  had  anticipated  this  in 
his  conception  of  minute,  innumerable  atoms  in  perpet- 
ual motion  through  the  realms  of  space.^  Do  modern 
physicists  boast  the  discovery  that  in  nature  there  is  no 
annihilation,  but  a  perpetual  conservation  of  energy,  a 
correlation  of  force,  and  transmutation  of  form  ?     Lucre- 

1  "  Omnia  qua  propter  debent  per  inane  quietum 
iEque  ponderibus  non  a2(]uis  concita  ferri." 

De  Rerum  Natura,  1.  ii.  230-240. 
For  the  convenience  of  readers  who  may  not  be  able  to  consult  Lu- 
cretius in  the  ori;j;inal,  in  quoting  his  poem,  I  have  followed  through- 
out (as  upon  the  whole  the  best)  the  neat,  terse,  and  accurate  prose 
translation  of  Mr.  Munro,  Fellow  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge, 
third  edition.  There  is  also  a  good  French  prose  translation  by 
Ernest  Lavigne,  avec  une  fitude  sur  la  Physique  de  Lucrece,  par 
Frederic  Andre,  Among  the  many  editions  of  the  original,  that  of 
Lachman  is  to  be  commended. 

2  L.  i.  988-1052.  "  All  things  are  ever  going  on  in  ceaseless  mo- 
tion .  .  .  hence  many  forms  must  arise."  Helmholtz  suggests  a 
vortex  motion  in  an  incompressible,  frictionless  liquid. 


264  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

tius  had  already  said,  "  Nature  does  not  annihilate 
things;"  —  "a  thing  never  returns  to  nothing,  but  all 
things  after  disruption  go  back  into  the  first  bodies  of 
matter.  None  of  the  things,  therefore,  which  seem  to  be 
lost  is  utterly  lost,  since  nature  replenishes  one  thing  out 
of  another,  and  does  not  suffer  anything  to  be  begotten 
before  she  has  been  recruited  by  the  death  of  some 
other."  ^  And  again  he  speaks  of  latent  forces  in  things, 
and  of  "  an  imperishable  residuum  into  which  all  things 
can  be  dissolved  at  their  last  hour,  that  there  may  be  a 
supply  of  matter  for  the  reproduction  of  things."  ^  Has 
Darwin  coined  the  phrases  "  struggle  for  existence," 
"  natural  selection,"  "  survival  of  the  fittest,"  to  account 
for  species  and  varieties  ?  Again  Lucretius  is  before- 
hand in  saying,  "  Not  by  design  did  the  first-beginnings 
of  things  station  themselves  each  in  its  right  place, 
guided  by  keen  intelligence  ;  nor  did  they  bargain,  sooth 
to  say,  what  motions  each  should  assume ;  but  because 
many  in  number,  and  shifting  about  in  many  ways 
throughout  the  universe,  they  are  driven  and  turmonted 
by  blows  during  infinite  time  past,  after  trying  motions 
and  unions  of  every  kind,  at  length  they  fall  into  ar- 
rangements such  as  those  out  of  which  this  our  sum  of 
things  has  been  formed."  ^ 

Above  all,  the  fundamental  conception  of  Lucretius 
that  the  atom  is  the  unit  of  structure  in  all  bodies  is  in 
part  confirmed  by  Dalton's  discovery  of  the  law  of  mul- 
tiple   proportions,*   and    by  other   recent   discoveries   in 

^  "  Hue  accedit  uti  quicque  in  sua  corpora  rursum, 
Dissoluat  natura  neque  ad  niluni  interemat  res 

Quando  alid  ex  alio  reficit  natura,  ncc  ullam 

Rem  gigni  patitur,  nisi  morte  adiuta  aliena." 

2  L.  i.  543-648.  L.  i.  215-265. 

'  L.  i.  1021-1027.     "  Oinne  genus  motus  et  ccetus  experiumlu." 

*  This  law,  as  hearing  upon  the  atomic  theory,  may  be  thus  stated  : 


niS  CONCEPTION  OF  THE  ATOM.  265 

cliemistry  and  physics  ;  and  should  we  accept  also  his 
doctrine  concerning  body  and  void,  I  see  not  how  there 
would  remain  anything  in  the  material  universe  beyond 
the  original  ken  of  this  poet-philosoj^her,  nor  anything 
for  science  to  do  but  to  verify  by  observation  his  meta- 
physical outline  of  nature  and  fill  up  its  details.  True, 
if  we  take  what  ho  calls  "  the  inane  "  for  absolute  vac- 
uum, some  scientists  would  be  at  issue  with  Lucretius 
with  their  doctrine  of  a  "  luminiferous  ether  "  filling  all 
space  and  trembling  with  waves  of  light — what  Roscoo 
calls  an  "  elastic  medium,"  ^  and  Tyndall  says  "  though 
more  attenuated  than  any  known  gas,  resembles  jelly 
rather  than  air."  ^     But  Lucretius  seems  to  mean  by  the 

Each  atom  is  a  definite  mass  of  matter,  having  a  definite  weirjht,  and 
all  atoms  of  the  same  substance  have  the  same  size  and  weight. 
Hence  "  when  an  atom  of  iron  unites  witli  an  atom  of  sul[)hur  to 
form  a  molecule  of  sulphide  of  iron,  the  union  takes  place  in  the 
proportion  by  weight  of  5G  to  32.  When  two  atoms  of  hydrogen 
combine  with  one  atom  of  oxygen  to  form  a  molecule  of  water,  since 
each  atom  of  oxygen  weiglis  sixteen  times  as  much  as  an  atom  of  hy- 
drogen, the  two  substances  must  combine  in  the  proportion  of  2:16 
or  1  :  8.  Further,  the  proportions  of  the  different  elementary  sub- 
stances which  unite  to  form  the  various  known  compounds  are  so  re- 
lated that  it  is  possible  to  find  for  each  element  a  number,  such  that, 
in  regard  to  the  several  nunibers,  it  may  be  said  that  the  elements 
always  combine  in  the  proportion  by  weight  of  these  numbers  or  of 
some  simple  multiples  of  these  numbers."  See  The  New  Chemis- 
try, by  Prof.  J.  P.  Cooke,  chap.  v.  Many  chemists,  though  not  all, 
accept  the  atomic  theory  as  the  best  solution  of  this  law  of  nmltiple 
proportions.  To  our  estimate  of  Lucretius,  the  variation  of  meaning 
in  the  terms  molecule  and  atom,  as  used  in  chemistry  and  in  physics, 
is  of  no  practical  importance. 

^  "  Light  is  due  to  the  undulations  of  the  elastic  medium  pervading 
all  space  to  which  physicists  have  given  the  name  of  luminiferous 
ether."     Roscoe  on  Spectrum  Analysis,  p.  9. 

^  Fragments  of  Science,  Essay  I.  "  The  Constitution  of  Nature." 
Reprinted  from  Fortnightly  Review,  vol.  iii.  p.  129. 

Though  this  theory  of  a  luminiferous  ether  seems  to  account  satis- 
factorily for  all  the  phenomena  of  light,  there  remain  eminent  phys- 


266  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

inane,  space  in  which  there  is  no  appreciable  matter  ;  as 
he  expressly  says  "  if  it  shall  be  intangible  and  unable 
to  hinder  anything  from  passing  through  it  on  any  side, 
this  you  are  to  know  will  be  that  which  we  call  empty 
void."  ^  This  seems  neither  more  nor  less  than  what 
philoso{)hers  have  surmised,  but  not  demonstrated,  under 
the  name  of  ether. 

Tennyson  has  finely  phrased  Lucretius'  doctrine  of  the 
void  as  the  abode  of  the  gods  :  — 

"  The  lucid  interspace  of  world  and  world, 
Where  never  creeps  a  cloud  or  moves  a  wind, 
Nor  ever  falls  the  least  white  star  of  snow, 
Nor  ever  lowest  roll  of  thunder  moans, 
Nor  sound  of  human  sorrow  mounts,  to  mar 
Their  sacred  everlasting  calm." 

We  must  pause  here  a  moment  to  observe  that,  how- 
ever in  fact  the  universe  was  or  is  made,  it  was  not  first 
constructed  by  the  materialists  of  our  day  ;  and  if  these 

icists  who  reject  it  or  hold  themselves  in  suspense  concerning  it.  The 
path  of  Encke's  comet  as  observed  through  the  great  equatorial  at 
Washington,  seems  to  confirm  von  Asten's  view  that  all  the  move- 
ments of  this  body  could  be  accounted  for  by  the  disturbing  attrac- 
tions of  the  planets,  without  supposing  a  retarding  influence  from  an 
ethereal  medium.  The  existence  of  such  a  medium  is  still  an  open 
question. 

Professor  Challis,  of  Cambridge,  regards  the  universe  as  made  up 
of  atoms  and  ether.  "  The  atoms  are  Ki)heres,  unalterable  in  mag- 
nitude, and  endowed  with  inertia,  but  with  no  other  property  what- 
ever. The  ether  is  a  perfect  fluid,  endowed  with  inertia,  and  exert- 
ing a  pressure  proportional  to  its  density.  It  is  truly  continuous  (and 
therefore  does  not  consist  of  atoms),  and  it  fills  u|)  all  the  interstices 
of  the  atoms."  J^ssay  on  the  Mathernutical  Principle:*  of  Physii-.t. 
See  Nature,  vol.  viii.  p.  279.  This  ether  of  Challis  is  a  modification 
of  the  void  of  Lucretius.  See  again  Ilelmholtz's  incompressible  fric- 
tionless  fluid. 

^  "  Sin  intactile  erit,  nulla  de  parte  quod  uUam 
Rem  prohibere  queat  per  se  transire  meantem, 
Scilicet,  hoc  id  erit,  vacuum  quod  inane  vocamus." 

L.i.  437-440. 


OTHER  ANTICIPATIONS  OF  MODERN  SCIENCE.     2G7 

gentlemen  were  better  versed  in  the  history  of  that  phi- 
losophy which  some  of  them  alTect  to  dt'spise,  they  might 
grow  wiser,  if  not  more  modest,  in  presence  of  tlie  grt-at 
masters  of  thought,  whose  shadows  they  are.  For  here 
observe  in  Lucretius,  that  it  was  thinking,  and  not  seeing, 
that  first  penetrated  the  arcana  of  tiie  universe.  That 
Lucretius  was  familiar  with  the  observations  as  well  as 
the  speculations  of  foregoing  philosophers  is  evident ;  ^ 
but  his  own  theory  of  the  universe,  now  confirmed  at  so 
many  points  by  experiment,  is  a  marvel  of  the  deductive 
method.  To  the  examples  already  given  of  his  anticipa- 
tion of  modern  discoveries  I  add  two  that  alone  should 
make  him  immortal  among  thinkers.  Lucretius  held  that 
atoms  "  are  of  solid  singleness,"  but  that  bodies  as  we  see 
them  are  made  up  of  atoms  and  void,  and  are  solid  or 
rare  according  to  the  proportions  of  body  and  void.  This 
he  illustrates  by  comparing  a  ball  of  wool  with  a  lump  of 
lead.  Take  now  the  beautiful  experiment  of  packing  the 
same  globe  with  three  kinds  of  vapor.  A  glass  globe, 
■with  a  capacity  of  one  cubic  foot,  and  containing  one  cu- 
bic inch  of  water,  is  exhausted  of  air,  and  then  heated  to 
the  boiling  point ;  the  water  all  evaporates,  and  the  globe 
is  filled  with  steam.  If  more  water  be  added,  the  same 
temperature  being  kept  up,  not  a  particle  of  this  will 
evaporate:  but  if  alcohol  is  introduced,  "  this  immedi- 
ately evaporates,  and  just  as  much  alcohol-vapor  will  form 
as  if  no  steam  were  present.  The  globe  is  filled  with 
aqueous-vapor  and  alcohol-vapor  at  one  and  the  same 
time,  each  acting,  in  all  respects,  as  if  it  occupied  the 
space  alone.  If  now  we  add  a  quantity  of  ether,  we  shall 
have  the  same  phenomena  repeated  ;  the  ether  will  ex- 
pand, and  fill  the  space  with  its  vapor,  and  the  globe  will 
hold  just  as  much  ether- vapor  as  if  neither  of  the  other 
two  were  present.  There  is  not  here  a  chemical  union 
^  See  note,  p.  262. 


268  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

between  the  several  vapors,  and  we  cannot  in  any  sense 
regard  the  space  as  filled  with  a  compound  of  the  three. 
We  can  give  no  satisfactory  explanation  of  these  phenom- 
ena except  on  the  assumption  that  each  snljstance  is  an 
aggregate  of  particles,  or  units,  which,  by  the  action  of 
heat,  become  widely  separated  from  each  othei-,  leaving 
very  large  intermolecular  spaces,  within  which  the  par- 
ticles of  an  almost  indefinite  number  of  other  vapors  may 
find  place."  ^  But  Lucretius  was  just  as  sure  that  such 
must  be  the  structure  of  bodies  as  if  he  had  witnessed  a 
thousand  such  experiments.  One  other  point  in  which 
Lucretius  anticipated  the  inductive  and  experimental 
science  of  modern  times  has  elicited  the  special  admira- 
tion of  Sir  William  Thomson,  himself  a  great  authority 
upon  the  structure  and  properties  of  atoms.  Lucretius, 
in  his  first  book,  vigorously  contests  the  notion  that  the 
universe  is  compounded  of  four  elements,  —  earth,  water, 
air,  and  fire,  —  and  especially  the  doctrine  that  fire  is  the 
source  of  all  things;  he  refers  all  phenomena  to  the  prop- 
erties of  atoms  and  their  kinetic  energy.  As,  for  instance, 
'"there  are  certain  bodies  whose  clashing  motions,  order, 
position,  and  shapes,  produce  fires,  and  which,  by  a  change 
of  order,  change  the  nature  of  the  things."  ^  Hence,  ac- 
cording to  Sir  William,  the  recent  methods  of  explain- 
ing heat,  light,  elasticity,  diffusion,  electricity,  and  mag- 
netism, in  gases,  liquids,  and  solids,  are  "carrying  out 
the  grand  conception  of  Lucretius,  who  admits  no  subtle 
ethers,  no  variety  of  elements  with  fiery,  or  watery,  or 
light,  or  heavy  principles;  nor  supposes  light  to  be  one 
thing,  fire  another,  electricity  a  fluid,  magnetism  a  vital 
principle,  but  treats  all  phenomena  as  mere  properties  or 
accidents  of  simple  matter."  ^ 

^  Cooke's  New  Chemistry:  Lecture  I. 
'  Muldltiqtie  online  mutant  naturam.     L.  i.  p.  685  seq. 
«  A(l<lrt;ss  of  Sir  \V.  Thomson,  LL.  D.,  F.  11.  S.,  hefore  the  British  As- 
ociation,  1871 ;  also  North  Britiah  Review  on  Lucretius,  March,  1808. 


METAPUYSICS  NOT  PUYSICS  TUE  BASIS.        269 

Now,  the  point  I  make,  and  would  insist  upon,  is  that 
these  were  not  lucky  guesses  or  coincidences  of  Lucretius, 
but  results  of  the  deductive  method  to  which  scituitiiic 
materialism  is  compelled  to  do  homage  by  its  own  discov- 
eries. But  remarkable  as  are  these  correspondences  of 
experimental  physics  and  chemistry  witii  the  atomic  the- 
ory, the  atom  itself  is  simply  assumed.  It  never  has  been, 
and  never  can  be  brought  within  the  range  of  the  senses. 
The  atomic  theory  is  evidenced  by  experiments  as  to 
atomic  weigiits,  volume,  heat,  and  combining  capacity, 
and  as  to  isomerism,  and  chemical  molecules  and  homo- 
geneity ;  but  the  theory  is  still  stoutly  contested  by  some, 
and  the  very  existence  of  the  atom  is  disputed  by  others.^ 
Yet  we  are  called  upon  to  accept  the  materialistic  doc- 
trine of  the  universe,  and  to  receive  nothing  as  knowledge 
which  does  not  come  to  us  through  the  senses,  while  for- 
sooth the  foundation  of  this  sensible  universe  lies  utterly 
beyond  the  senses,  is  not  at  all  a  physical  fact  that  any 
one  has  seen  or  handled,  but  a  theoretical  deduction,  an 
assumption  of  the  mind  to  explain  facts  that  are  seen. 
Let  the  atomic  theory  have  all  due  acceptance  as  an  in- 
genious and  subtile  theory,  but  let  it  not  be  thrust  upon 
us  as  a  dogma  by  a  hierarchy  of  physicists  —  which,  in 
the  name  of  human  freedom,  is  as  much  to  be  resisted  and 
detested  as  an  ecclesiastical  hierarchy.  JNIost  heartily  and 
gratefully  do  I  welcome  all  facts  ascertained  by  physical 
science  ;  nor  do  I  see,  upon  theistic  grounds,  any  solid 
objection  to  the  nebular  hypothesis,  the  atomic  theory, 
the  doctrine  of  the  correlation  of  forces,  or  of  natural  se- 
lection. But  should  all  these  be  established  upon  the 
physical  basis  of  experimental  observation,  I  pray  men 
of  science  to  be   honest  enough  to  own   that  it  was  not 

1  See  Essay  of  S.  D.  Tillman,  Nature,  vol.  vi.  p.  171 ;  E.  J.  Mills 
in  P/iilosophical  Magazine,  xliii.  p.  112;  and  Professor  B.  C.  Brodie, 
Journal  of  the  Chemical  Society,  London,  p.  xxi.  p.  367. 


270  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

physics  but  metaphysics  that  first  suggested  and  sought 
to  demonstrate  them,  each  and  all.  Materialism  cannot 
repudiate  its  own  parentage  ;  cannot  steal  the  name  of 
Lucretius  and  scorn  his  method.  Materialism  was  be- 
gotten not  of  nature,  but  of  mind  through  metaphysics. 

I  accept  the  method  of  induction  as  the  basis  of  scien- 
tific theorizing,  but  not  to  the  exclusion  of  logic  and  im- 
agination, —  in  one  word,  of  metaphysical  speculation. 
Three  hundred  years  have  passed  since  Bacon  gave  us 
the  inductive  method,  and  now  that  method  is  only  be- 
ginning to  give  us  results  as  to  the  pliysical  universe, 
which,  nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  Lucretius,  poet  and 
metaphysician,  evolved  from  his  own  brain.  In  the 
sphere  of  physics,  speculation  may  require  to  be  con- 
firmed by  observation,  and  speculation  cannot  stand 
when  positively  contradicted  by  observation ;  but  in  the 
conception  of  the  universe  there  is  a  sphere  for  meta- 
physics as  well  as  physics,  and  in  which  metajjliysics  may 
be  strong  enough  and  clear  enough  to  assert  that  the 
seeming  facts  of  physics  are  delusions  and  its  deductions 
fallacies.  That  which  man  sees  is  not  all  that  is,  nor  all 
that  man  knows  or  dare  affirm. 

Goethe,  who  might  have  been  first  among  physicists 
had  he  not  been  first  among  poets,  said  :  "  1  want  to 
know  what  it  is  that  impels  every  several  portion  of  the 
universe  to  seek  out  some  other  portion,  either  to  rule  or 
to  obey  it,  and  qualifies  some  for  the  one  part  and  some 
for  the  other,  according  to  a  law  innate  in  them  all  and 
operating  like  a  voluntary  choice.  But  this  is  precisely 
the  point  upon  which  the  most  perfect  and  universal  si- 
lence prevails."  ^     And  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Faust 

^  Conversation  with  Falk.     Hegel  quotes  a  like  sentiment  from 
another  poet:  — 

"  In's  Inncre  der  Natur 

Dringt  kein  erschaffner  Geist, 


RELATION  OF  THE  SEEN  AND  THE  UNSEEN.        271 

that  which  we  may  take  for  at  once  the  boast  and  the 
confession  of  his  own  mind  :  — 

"  I  feel  indeed  that  1  have  made  the  treasure 

Of  human  thought  and  knowledge  mine  in  vain, 

And  if  I  now  »it  down  in  restful  leisure, 

No  fount  of  newer  strength  is  in  my  brain; 

I  am  no  hair's-breadth  more  in  height, 

Nor  nearer  to  the  infinite."  ^ 

TJie  knowledge  of  the  Seen  does  not  preclude  the  exist- 
ence of  the  Unseen.  It  is  the  failure  to  admit  this  simple 
apiiorism  that  has  been  the  folly  of  materialists  from 
Lucretius  to  Haeckel.  Lucretius  says,  "  From  the  senses 
first  has  proceeded  the  knowledge  of  the  true,  and  the 
senses  cannot  be  refuted  ;  "^  and  he  asks,  "  What  surer 
test  can  we  have  than  the  senses  whereby  to  note  truth 
and  falsehood — to  what  else  shall  we  appeal?"^  I 
answer,  to  that  Something  within  us  that  sits  in  judg- 
ment upon  the  senses  and  determines  whether  their  tes- 
timony is  true  or  false ;  which,  for  instance,  when  the 
eye  sees  a  ghost  in  the  grave-yard,  or  a  lake  in  the  desert, 
decides  that  this  is  but  an  illusion  of  the  retina,  or  a 
disease  of  the  oj^tic  nerve.*  When  you  look  upon  the 
Zu  gliicklich,  wenn  er  nur 
Die  iiussere  Schaale  weis't." 
To  this  Hegel  adds  the  couiment,  "  Kather  should  it  be  said,  if  the 
essence  of  Nature  is  determined  by  any  one  as  inner,  in  that  very 
determination  he  knows  only  the  outer  shell."  Encyklopddie  tier 
philoaophischen  Wissenschaften.  §  140.  Die  Lehre  vom  Wesen. 
^  Bayard  Taylor's  translation. 

2  "  Invenies  primis  ab  sensibus  esse  creatam 
Notitiem  veri,  neque  sensus  posse  refelli." 

L.  iv.  475,  476. 
'  "  Quo  referemus  enim?  quid  nobis  certius  ipsis 

Sensibus  esse  potest,  qui  vera  ac  falsa  notemus  ?  " 

L.  i.  699,  700. 
*  Thus  Macbeth,  while  intent  upon  the  murder  of  Duncan,  first 
sees  a  dagger,  then  disputes  his  sight  by  his  touch,  then,  when  his 
reason  recovers  from  the  bewilderment  of  his  imagination,  he  passes 


272  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

clever  tricks  of  the  juggler  or  the  medium,  you  know 
that  you  are  being  cheated,  and  do  not  see  what  you  see, 
nor  hear  what  you  hear.  You  judge  your  senses  at  the 
time,  and  enjoy  the  conscious  luxury  of  being  hum- 
bugged, or  if  misled  for  the  moment  by  appearances, 
when  you  think  it  over,  you  berate  your  senses  for  hav- 
ing fooled  you.  Our  senses  are  not  the  final  and  suffi- 
cient judge  upon  all  fact  and  truth.  This  crucial  test  of 
Lucretius  is  unscientific  in  three  particulars. 

I.  It  would  shut  out  the  great  body  of  mankind  from 
that  knowledge  which  is  necessary  to  just  convictions 
and  beliefs,  and  to  right  action.  It  is  not  possible  for  the 
body  of  mankind  to  make  with  their  own  senses  those 
observations  of  Nature  upon  which  physicists  base  the 
doctrine  of  the  world  and  of  life.  Hence,  in  a  matter  of 
such  higli  concern  as  tiie  order  of  things  with  which  they 
are  related,  mankind  must  put  that  faith  in  physicists 

judgment  both  upon  his  senses  and  his  fancy,  and  is  himself  again. 
By  italicizing  a  few  words  of  his  soliloquy  the  whole  process  becomes 
plain:  — 

*'  Is  this  a  dagger,  which  I  see  before  me, 

The  handle  toward  my  hand?     Come,  let  me  clutch  thee;  — 

I  have  thee  not,  and  yet  I  see  thee  still. 

Art  thou  not,  fatal  vision,  sensible 

To  feeling,  as  to  sight?  or  art  thou  but 

A  (kifff/er  of  the  mind  :  a  false  creation, 

Proceeding  from  the  heat-oppressed  brain  ? 

I  .see  thee  yet,  in  form  as  palpable 

As  this  which  now  I  draw. 


Mine  eyes  are  made  the  fools  o'  the  other  senses, 
Or  else  icorlh  all  the  rest :  I  SEPj  thee  still  : 
And  on  thy  blade,  an<l  dudgeon,  gouts  of  blood. 
Which  was  not  so  before;  —  There  's  no  such  thing: 
It  is  tlie  hlootbj  business,  which  informs 
Thus  to  mine  eyes." 
Shakfspeare  made  no  mistake  in  making  sense  thus  mislead,  and 
then  refuting  sense  by  reason. 


UNSCIENTIFIC  REASONING.  278 

which  for  themselves  they  contest  and  renounce.  When 
the  scientific  materialist  speaks  ex  cathedrd  there  is 
notliing  for  the  laity  but  implicit  submission  to  his  au- 
thority. If  they  venture  an  opinion,  he  tells  them  they 
have  "no  knowledge,"  they  may  feel  or  believe  —  but 
he  knou'8.^ 

II.  It  is  unscientific  to  assume  that  all  tinners  are 
discernible  by  the  senses.  No  mortal  has  yet  seen  or 
handled  that  in  the  senses  which  discerns.  No  atomist 
has  seen  or  felt  an  atom.  No  instrument  has  yet  pierced 
or  measured  what  lies  in  spaces  that  are  ever  and  forever 
next  beyond. 

III.  It  is  unscientific  to  attempt  to  account  for  man 
and  the  universe  within  the  narrow  range  of  man's  ex- 
ternal senses,  leaving  out  of  view  that  immeasurable 
reach  and  range  of  faculty  by  which  he  knows  himself,  to 
be  other  than  a  walking,  seeing,  feeling,  eating  brute. 
It  was  this  unscientific  limitation  of  knowledge  to  the 
vehicle  of  the  senses  that  led  Lucretius  into  the  fallacy 
that  "  there  is  nothing  which  you  can  affirm  to  be  at 
once  separate  from  all  bodies  and  quite  distinct  from 
void,  which  would,  so  to  say,  account  for  the  discovery  of 
a  third  nature,"^ — ^  that  nothing  exists  or  can  exist  in 
the  universe  beside  void  and  bodies.  For  the  constitu- 
tion of  a  material  universe,  it  is  true  that  matter  and 
space  or  body  and  void  are  alike  essential,  and  so  far  as 
we  know  are  all ;  but  the  question  is,  whether  the  mate- 
rial universe  is  all ;  and  that  question  cannot  be  settled 
by  purely  physical  observation  upon  the  nature  of  bodies 
or   the  contents   of  space.     That   incessant  striving   of 

^  See  Tyndall's  reply  to  Martineau  in  Fortnightly  Review,  Novem- 
ber, 1875. 

2  "  Prajterea  nil  est  quod  possis  dicere  ab  omni 
Corpore  seiunctum  secretumque  esse  ab  inani, 
Quod  quasi  tertia  sit  numerp  natura'reperta." 

L.  i.  430-433. 
18 


274  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

man's  nature  after  something  above  and  beyond,  —  a 
striving  that  grows  the  more  impatient  with  his  mastery 
over  nature  and  his  accumulating  stores  of  knowledge ; 
that  mighty  unrest  in  which  a  Prometheus,  a  Lucifer, 
a  Faust  are  but  projected  types  of  our  inner  selves ;  the 
unrest  that  urges  man  on  to  think  the  unthinkable  and 
to  know  the  unknowable  ;  that  makes  poetry,  philoso- 
phy, music,  so  much  higher  and  worthier  representations 
of  humanity  than  the  recorded  observation  of  phenora- 
•ena,  —  what  is  this  but  an  attestation  of  that  "  third 
thing"  that  Lucretius  could  not  feel  nor  see,  but  that 
Paul  had  attained  to  when  he  spoke  of  "  body,  soul,  and 
spirit,"  and  found  not  only  a  third  element  in  the  con- 
stitution of  man  and  of  the  universe,  but  also  a  "  third 
heaven  "  in  which  spirit  might  abide  ? 

But  it  is  not  my  purpose  here  to  discuss  the  world- 
scheme  of  Lucretius  or  of  Paul  from  a  purely  physical 
point  of  view.  As  I  have  said,  I  would  bring  each  sys- 
tem before  you  in  the  words  and  with  the  weight  of  these 
great  masters,  and  then  leave  you  to  test  the  materialism 
of  the  one  and  the  theism  of  the  other  by  the  needs  and 
aptitudes  of  your  own  nature.  Lucretius  lays  it  down  as 
his  first  principle  "  that  nothing  is  ever  gotten  out  of 
nothing  by  divine  power."  ^  Hence  matter,  as  to  its  es- 
sence, or  what  he  terms  the  "  first-beginnings,"  is  eternal 
and  imperishable.  Then,  as  to  the  forms  of  things,  these 
are  due  not  to  design  nor  intelligence,  but  to  the  conflicts 
and  combinations  of  atoms  through  motion  and  eternal 
laws,  so  that  everything  exists  as  to  its  elements,  and  all 
things  are  done,  as  to  the  manner  of  them,  "  without  the 
hand  of  the  Gods."  ^  Taking  his  illustration  from  the 
minute  bodies  seen  floating  in  a  sunbeam  in  a  dark  cham- 
ber, he  says :  "  For  the  first-beginnings  of  things  move 

^  Nullam  rem  e  nilo  gigni  divinitus  umquam.     L.  i.  150. 
«  L.  i.  157  and  1020*65. 


FIEST-BEG INNINGS  OF  LUCRETIUS.  275 

first  of  themselves  ;  next  those  bodies  which  form  a  small 
aggregate  and  come  nearest  so  to  say  to  the  powers  of  the 
first-beginnings  are  impelled  and  set  in  movement  by  the 
unseen  strokes  of  those  first  bodies,  and  they  next  in  turn 
stir  up  bodies  which  are .  a  little  larger.  Tims  motion 
mounts  up  from  the  first-beginnings,  and  step  by  step 
issues  forth  to  our  senses,  so  that  tliose  bodies  also  move 
which  we  can  discern  in  the  sunlight,  though  it  is  not 
clearly  seen  by  what  blows  they  so  act."  ^ 

We  must  now  keep  in  mind  how  strongly  Lucretius  in- 
sists that  "  from  the  senses  first  proceeded  the  knowledge 
of  the  true,  and  the  senses  cannot  be  refuted."  Yet  he 
here  assumes  several  successive  stages  of  motion  by  the 
impact  of  bodies  before  either  body  or  motion  becomes 
cognizable  by  the  senses.  That  is,  for  the  foundation  of 
his  atomic  theory  he  reasons  back  from  the  seen  to  the 
unseen  :  the  reasoning  may  be  valid,  but  the  existence 
of  the  atom  is  not  attested  by  the  senses.  Yet  nowa- 
days, to  reason  from  the  seen  to  the  unseen,  from  phe- 
nomena to  cause,  from  adaptation  to  intelligence,  is  for- 
sooth made  an  offense  in  the  metaphysician,  though 
Lucretius  arrived  at  his  atom  by  deduction,  and  then  as- 
sumed the  atom  as  the  basis  of  his  materialistic  universe ! 
Next,  having  inferred  the  motion  of  invisible  atoms  from 
the  perceived  motion  of  visible  particles,  he  makes  the 
bold  assumption  of  self-originated  motion  for  the  first-be- 
ginnings. This  is  sheer  assertion,  since  his  senses  had 
shown  him  only  motion  by  impact,  and  neither  the  senses 
nor  logic  could  derive  from  this  motion  without  "  blows  " 
to  start  it.  Newton  has  said  that  "  the  properties  which 
we  attribute  to  the  least  parts  of  matter  must  be  consis- 
tent with  those  of  which  experiments  on  sensible  bodies 
have  made  us  cognizant."     Now  Lucretius  admits  that 

1  Pi-ima  moventur  enim  per  se  primordia  rerum,  etc.    B.  ii.  133 
seq. 


276  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

all  bodies  above  the  "  first-beginnings  "  have  the  property 
of  inertia,  and  require  to  be  "  set  in  movement,"  "  im- 
pelled," "  stirred  up  "  by  "  strokes  and  blows  "  from 
without.  But  when  he  reaches  his  "  first-beginnings  " 
be  drops  inertia  and  impact,  and  substitutes  self-move- 
ment, by  a  most  gratuitous  assumption.  This  is  the 
habit  of  his  followers.  On  the  materialistic  principle 
neither  observation  nor  logic  can  begin  the  first-begin- 
ning, nor  start  the  first  motion.  At  this  point  material- 
ism begs  the  whole  question.  It  gives  no  proof  that  the 
universe  is  automatic. 

But  to  proceed.  From  atoms  and  motion  acting  under 
certain  conditions,  Lucretius  produces  organic  life,  so  that 
"  whatever  things  we  perceive  to  have  sense  are  all  com- 
posed of  senseless  first-beginnings  ;  "  ^  and  "  Nature  is 
seen  to  do  all  things  spontaneously  of  herself,  without 
the  meddling  of  the  Gods."  ^  Nor  does  he  stop  with  the 
material  origin  of  organic  life,  but  teaches  that  "  the  na- 
ture of  the  mind  and  soul  is  bodily  "  —  the  directing  and 
governing  principle  of  life  being  physically  "  no  less  part 
of  the  man  than  hand  and  foot  and  eyes."  ^  He  even 
goes  so  far  as  to  describe  the  bodies,  seeds,  or  atoms  out 
of  which  the  mind  is  formed ;  namely,  that  "  these  are 
exceedingly  small,  smooth,  and  round,  and  inwoven 
through  the  veins  and  flesh  and  sinews  of  the  body  ;  the 
proofs  of  which  are  the  great  velocity  with  which  the 
mind  moves,  and  the  fact  that,  at  death,  the  *'  so-called 
departure  of  the  soul  takes  away  none  of  the  weight  of 
the  body  any  more  than  a  delicious  aroma  dispersed  in 
the  air  reduces  the  size  or  weight  of  the  body  that  emits 
it."*  Hence  he  argues  that  in  death  the  "cause  of  de- 
struction is  one  and  inseparable  for  both  body  and  soul ;  " 
that  the  soul  driven  forth  out  of  the  body  into  the  open 

*  L.  ii.  865.  «  L.  iii.  94-162. 

«  L.  ii.  1090.  *  L.  iii.  177-230. 


FATE  OF  THE  SOUL.  277 

air,  "  stripped  of  its  covering,  not  only  cannot  continue 
through  eternity,  but  is  unable  to  hold  together  the 
smallest  fraction  of  time."  "  The  nature  of  the  mind  is 
mortal ;  therefore  when  the  body  has  died,  the  soul  itself 
has  perished  also  "  as  to  its  individuality  ;  the  chain  of 
self-consciousness  is  snapped  asunder ;  and  the  elements 
of  both  body  and  soul  are  resolved  into  other  material 
forms.  "  Immortal  death  takes  away  from  both  their 
mortal  life."  i 

There,  is  a  certain  grandeur  and  beauty  in  these  con- 
ceptions, and  I  confess  that  when  first  I  had  mastered 
Lucretius,  I  felt  a  touch  of  awe  at  the  majesty  of  a  soul 
thus  blindly  bowing  to  its  fate,  and,  Samson-like,  dragging 
down  men  and  gods  together  in  its  own  destruction.  But 
as  I  looked  upon  such  a  universe,  in  which  destruction  is 
the  ever-recurring  law,  and  death  alone  is  immortal,  from 
this  background  of  darkness  and  despair,  I  saw  rise  be- 
fore me  that  marvelous  vision  of  Wordsworth :  — 

"  In  my  mind's  eye  a  temple,  like  a  cloud 
Slowly  surmounting  some  invidious  hill, 
Rose  out  of  darkness  :  the  bright  work  stood  still ; 
And  might  of  its  own  beauty  have  been  proud, 
But  it  was  fashioned,  and  to  God  was  vowed 
By  virtues  that  diffused,  in  every  part, 
Spirit  divine  through  forms  of  human  art  ; 
Faith  had  her  arch  —  her  ai'ch  when  winds  blow  loud, 
Into  the  consciousness  of  safety  thrilled  ; 
And  Love  her  towers  of  dread  foundation  laid 
Under  the  grave  of  things  ;  Hope  had  her  spire 
Star-high,  and  pointing  still  to  something  higher  ; 
Trembling  I  gazed,  but  beard  a  voice,  —  it  said, 
Hell-gates  are  powerless  Phantoms  when  we  build."  ^ 

This  vision  recalls  us  to  the  scheme  of  the  universe  as 
set  forth  by  Paul,  whom  we  mate  with  Lucretius  as  the 
greatest  master  of  theistic  thought.    His  foundation  prin- 

1  L.  iii.  632-867.  2  Miscellaneous  Sonnets,  x\iv. 


278  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

ciple  is,  "Every  house  is  builded  by  some  man,  but  He 
that  built  all  things  is  God."  ^  "  Through  faith  we  un- 
derstand that  the  worlds  were  framed  by  the  Word  of 
God ;  so  that  things  which  are  seen  were  not  made  of 
things  which  do  appear."  ^  "  For  the  invisible  things  of 
Him  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  be- 
ing understood  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his 
eternal  power  and  godhead."  *  Like  Lucretius  *  seeking 
to  deliver  men  from  superstition,  but  by  satisfying  that 
feeling  of  devotion  that  is  imperishable  in  man,  Paul  said 
to  the  men  of  Lystra,  "  We  preach  unto  you,  that  ye 
should  turn  from  these  vanities  unto  the  living  God, 
which  made  heaven  and  earth  and  the  sea,  and  all  things 
that  are  therein.  He  left  not  himself  without  witness  in 
that  He  did  good  ;  He  gave  us  rain  from  heaven,  and 
fruitful  seasons,  filling  our  hearts  with  food  and  glad- 
ness." ^,  At  Athens,  this  system  of  Paul  came  into  direct 
collision  with  the  Epicurean  system  of  Lucretius.  The 
materialists  of  Athens,  with  the  air  of  contempt  that 
their  followers  affect  to-day,  said, "  What  will  this  bab- 
bler say  ?  "  What  does  he  know  of  philosophy,  of  science, 
of  the  universe  ?  And  the  "  babbler,"  standing  in  the 
place  where  Socrates  was  judged,  with  an  eloquence  that 
Demosthenes  might  have  envied,  addressed  himself  to 
their  consciousness,  to  their  understanding,  to  their  moral 
sense,  to  the  dignity  of  their  nature,  appealed  to  their 
reason,  to  their  own  poets,  and  to  that  irrepressible,  in- 
satiable yearning  of  their  souls,  which,  overflowing  all 
boundaries  of  superstition,  and  all  temples  of  human  art, 
went  forth  into  the  unmeasured  void  of  Lucretius  to  seek 
the  Unknown.     "  Ye   men   of  Athens,  I  perceive  that, 

1  Heb.  iii.  4.  a  Heb.  ii.  3. 

«  Rom.  i.  20. 

*  See  note  at  the  end  of  this  article. 

*  Acts  xiv.  15-17. 


THEISM  OF  PAUL.  279 

above  other  peoples,  ye  are  in  every  way  given  to  relig- 
ious reverence.  For,  as  I  passed  through  the  city,  and 
looked  over  the  objects  of  your  devotion,  I  found  an  altar 
with  this  inscription,  —  To  an  Unknown  God.  Him, 
therefore,  whom  ye  worship  though  ye  know  Him  not  — 
Him  do  I  set  forth  to  you.  God  that  made  the  world 
and  all  things  therein,  seeing  that  He  is  Lord  of  heaven 
and  earth,  dwelleth  not  in  temples  made  with  hands, 
neither  is  worshiped  with  men's  hands  as  though  He 
needed  anything,  seeing  He  giveth  to  all  life  and  breath 
and  all  things :  and  every  nation  of  men  —  all  alike  of 
one  blood  —  He  hath  caused  to  dwell  on  all  the  face 
of  the  earth,  and  hath  determined  the  times  before  ap- 
pointed and  the  bounds  of  their  habitation  ;  that  they 
should  seek  the  Lord,  if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him 
and  find  Him,  though  He  be  not  far  from  every  on^  of 
us :  for  in  Ilim  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being ; 
as  certain  also  of  your  own  poets  have  said,  For  we  are 
also  his  offspring."  ^ 

As  no  materialistic  philosopher  of  modern  times  has 
improved  upon  Lucretius  in  his  conception  of  the  uni- 
verse, so  no  theistic  thinker  has  got  beyond  that  "  bab- 
ble "•  of  Paul  at  Athens ;  and  the  question  of  to-day  is, 
to  which  system  does  your  nature  answer  and  which 
teacher  will  your  mind  follow  ?  It  is  you  then  who  are 
to  make  the  argument ;  rather,  it  makes  itself,  as  we  ex- 
hibit these  two  systems  of  the  universe  in  the  mirror  of 
your  own  nature. 

I.  The  first  test  springs  directly  out  of  the  day  on 
which  and  the  purpose  for  which,  we  have  come  together. 

1  Acts  xvii.  22  seq.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  new  English  trans- 
lation will  restore  this  incomparable  speech  to  its  original  beauty  and 
force  of  diction.  Paul  was  an  orator,  a  scholar,  and  a  gentleman,  and 
did  not  open  his  speech  by  insulting  his  audience,  and  stirring  their 
prejudices,  as  represented  in  the  English  version. 


280  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

In  the  words  of  the  Proclamation  by  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  "  Amid  the  rich  and  free  enjoyment  of  all 
our  advantages,  we  should  not  forget  the  source  from 
whence  they  are  derived,  and  the  extent  of  our  obliga- 
tions to  the  Father  of  all  our  mercies."  And  therefore, 
*'in  accordance  with  a  practice  at  once  wise  and  beauti- 
ful," and  in  sympathy  with  the  millions  of  our  country- 
men, "  we  devote  this  occasion  to  the  humble  expression 
of  our  thanks  to  Almighty  God  for  the  ceaseless  and  dis- 
tinguished benefits  bestowed  upon  us  as  a  nation,  and  for 
his  mercies  and  protection  during  the  closing  year."  But 
if  the  theory  of  Lucretius  is  true,  it  should  shame  you  to 
be  here,  and  should  shame  me  still  more  to  be  speaking 
to  you  of  such  a  theme.  What  then  should  we  thank  ? 
the  myriad  atoms  heaving,  tossing,  driving,  mixing,  with- 
out consciousness,  without  intelligence,  without  feeling  as 
to  whether  they  shall  shape  a  mountain  or  a  mole,  a  beast 
or  a  man  ?  If  the  doctrine  of  Lucretius  is  true,  this  is  no 
place  and  these  are  no  acts  for  men  of  science  or  men  of 
sense.  We  are  no  wiser,  no  better  than  the  Africans 
at  their  fetich  worship,  though  under  another  name. 
Thanksgiving  is  a  superstition,  and  we  of  all  people  in 
the  world  should  be  free  of  superstition.  And  we  are 
free  of  it.  Our  practical  reasoning  nature  does  not  in- 
cline toward  it.  There  is  no  background  of  superstition 
in  our  history,  there  are  no  legends,  monuments,  mythol- 
ogies, ruins,  for  superstition  to  build  upon.  We  have 
broken  the  yoke  alike  of  political  tradition  and  of  eccle- 
siastical tyranny.  We  are  free  men  of  free  thought.  If 
•we  brought  with  us  superstitions  of  our  own,  we  have 
worked  ourselves  free  of  them  by  travel  and  study  in  for- 
eign lands.  Even  that  one  amiable  superstition  that 
clings  to  the  unsophisticated  American,  —  that  his  is  just 
about  the  biggest  nation  on  the  planet,  —  he  gets  ashamed 
of,  when  he  sees  what  bigger  fools  other  people  can  make 


THE  SENTIMENT  OF  GRATITUDE.  281 

of  themselves  by  boasting  their  nation  the  centre  of  all 
wisdom,  the  source  and  end  of  all  culture ! 

But  if  we  are  sometimes  fools  we  are  not  hypocrites. 
No  law,  no  form,  no  tradition,  no  regard  for  opinion  com- 
pels our  attendance  here  to-day.  We  are  here  because 
moved  by  one  of  the  profoundest,  noblest,  holiest  senti- 
ments of  our  nature.  In  giving  thanks  to  God,  we  do 
homage  to  that  which  is  best  and  purest  within  ourselves. 
Man  is  as  truly  made  for  the  exercise  of  gratitude  as  for 
the  use  of  his  physical  senses.  These  are  no  more  part 
of  him  than  that.  Nay,  to  be  void  of  gratitude  is  worse 
than  to  be  blind,  deaf,  or  dumb.  Mankind  have  stamped 
ingratitude  as  more  execrable  than  any  sin  or  crime. 
jiEsop  has  branded  it  in  the  fable  of  tlie  viper  stinging 
him  who  had  warmed  it  into  life.  In  that  tragedy  that 
combines  in  itself  more  hon-ors  than  all  dramas  ever  writ- 
ten for  the  stage, —  the  "  Orestes  "  of  Euripides,  —  though 
the  matricide  can  plead  in  mitigation  that  his  mother  was 
an  adultress  and  had  murdered  his  father,  and  that  the 
god  Apollo  had  commanded  him  to  slay  her,  yet  the  con- 
stant refrain  of  the  chorus  as  they  bewail  his  crime  and 
of  the  people  as  they  demand  his  punishment  is,  that  he 
did  not  hold  back  the  dagger  when  his  mother  bared  to 
him  the  breasts  that  had  suckled  him  :  and  in  the  tor- 
ments of  his  madness,  Orestes  sees  his  father  beseeching 
him  not  to  slay  her  who  bore  him.i 

The  lowest  deeps  of  his  "  Inferno,"  that  he  was  pow- 
erless with  terror  to  describe,  Dante  reserved  for  the  in- 
famy of  ingratitude  and  treason.     Shakespeare,  holding 
before  us  the  rent  and  bloody  mantle  of  Ceesar,  gives  the 
^  Shakespeare  has  the  same  thought  in  Lear,  act  i.  scene  4  :  — 
"  Ingratitude!  thou  marble-hearted  fiend, 

INIore  hideous,  when  thou  show'st  thee  in  a  child, 

Tlian  the  sea-monster! 

How  sharper  than  a  serpent's  tooth  it  is 

To  have  a  thankless  child  !  " 


282  LUCRETIUS   OR  PAUL. 

final  thrill   of   horror  when  he  points  to  the  wound  of 
Brutus's  dagger :  — 

"  This  was  tbg  most  unklndest  cut  of  all  : 
For  when  the  noble  Caesar  saw  him  stab, 
Ingratitude,  more  strong  than  traitor's  arms, 
Quite  vanquished  him;  then  burst  his  mighty  heart!  " 

And  the  greatest  master  of  English  style,  South,  has 
said,  "  In  the  charge  of  ingratitude  omnia  dixeris :  it  is 
one  gfeat  blot  upon  all  mortality:  it  is  all  in  a  word  :  it 
says  Amen  to  the  black  roll  of  sins  :  it  gives  comple- 
tion and  confirmation  to  them  all."  ^  How  strong  in 
man  must  be  that  emotional  texture,  the  rending  of 
which  has  filled  the  literature  of  all  ages  with  sounds  of 
terror  and  of  woe  !  And  now  shall  the  materialist  tell 
me  that  I,  who,  when  I  receive  anything  of  good  feel 
within  me  this  swelling,  bursting  heart  of  gratitude  and 
praise,  can  find  in  the  universe  nothing  worthy  of  myself 
on  which  to  bestow  it  ?  nothing  but  atoms  where  I  can 
see,  nothing  but  void  where  I  cannot  see !  Shall  I  con- 
sent to  be  stripped  of  this  prerogative  of  love,  of  this 
ecstasy  of  grateful  praise,  and  be  told  that  in  the  uni- 
verse, amid  its  myriads  of  atoms,  there  is  not  one  atom 
of  intelligence,  of  love,  or  good,  that  thinks  or  cares  for 
me  ?  What  do  I  want  from  atoms  like  myself,  grinding 
on  under  the  everlasting  laws  till  our  brief  turn  shall 
come  to  be  crushed  and  die?  My  heart  is  greater  than 
them  all.  My  heart  refuses  to  be  satisfied  with  a  uni- 
verse that  makes  its  finest,  noblest  sentiments  of  no  ac- 
count, because  it  has  nothing  for  these  to  rest  upon, — 
aye  that  would  put  the  heart  itself  into  a  crucible,  and 
reduce  its  divinest  feelings  to  fantasies, — that  would 
make  its  love  a  folly  and  its  gratitude  a  superstition  ! 
Lucretius  may  puzzle  ray  brain  ;  but  when  I  cease  to  be 
an  automaton  and  feel  myself  a  man,  my  heart  rebounds 
^  Vol.  i.  Sermon  10. 


NATURE  OF  MAN.  283 

at  the  voice  of  Paul,  and  I  turn  from  these  materialistic 
vanities  "  to  the  living  God,  which  made  heaven  and 
earth  and  the  sea,  and  all  things  that  are  therein,  and  fills 
our  hearts  with  food  and  gladness."  My  whole  nature 
rests  in,  and  is  satisfied  with,  the  thought  that  "  in  Hira 
we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  ;  for  we  are  his 
offspring." 

Shall  I  be  told  that  an  appeal  from  human  feelings 
can  have  no  weight  against  the  testimony  of  physical 
facts  ?  I  answer,  first,  that  I  do  not  array  feelings 
against  facts,  but  human  nature  against  the  narrow  and 
exclusive  inference  that  materialists  would  make  from 
physical  nature.  And  next,  that  I  am  dealing  here  not 
with  modern  materialists  of  one  idea,  —  and  that  idea  an 
atom,  —  but  with  the  great  master  of  materialism,  whose 
brain  was  large  enough  to  take  in  Mankind  as  well  as 
Nature.  Lucretius  contemplated  the  nature  of  things  as 
related  to  the  conditions  of  man,  and  sought  to  relieve 
mankind  of  troubled  feelings  and  fancies  by  teaching 
that  they  and  all  things  are  but  a  congeries  of  atoms. 
Hence  it  is  a  legitimate  criticism  upon  his  system  that  it 
fails  completely  of  the  end  to  which  he  sought  to  apply 
it.  The  materialist  teaches  that  man  himself  is  but  a 
material  product  of  means  and  agencies  purely  physical, 
and  that  at  death  he  shall  be  resolved  into  primitive 
atoms.  He  is  not  at  liberty,  therefore,  to  set  aside  the 
feelings  of  man  as  having  no  relation  to  a  physical  sys- 
tem, and  of  no  account  as  matter  of  knowledge.  He  is 
bound  to  account  for  the  existence  of  such  feelings,  and 
to  find  some  correlation  of  the  universe  to  man  as  he  is, 
and  knows  himself  to  be.  It  is  a  consistent,  logical,  and 
also  a  scientific  objection  to  the  materialistic  scheme  of 
the  universe  that  it  fails  utterly  to  account  for  or  respond 
to  that  which  is  noblest  and  best  in  man  —  his  aesthetic 
and  ethical  nature,  his  spiritual  longings  and  hopes.     Far 


284  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

be  it  from  me  to  imply  that  materialists  themselves  are 
wanting  in  these  finer  sentiments  of  our  nature.  Men 
are  often  better  than  their  systems,  and  a  man's  feeling 
may  show  him  better  than  his  opinion  or  belief.  Even 
while  one  is  employing  his  intellect  to  prove  that  he  is 
of  the  earth  earthy,  his  moral  nature  may  proclaim  his 
divine  origin  and  his  immortal  destiny.^  My  argument 
has  to  do  not  with  men  but  with  systems  ;  and  I  put  it 
to  you  personally,  whether  you  would  consent  to  stifle 
your  emotions  of  gratitude  for  any  scientific  dogma  of 
materialism,  or  whether  that  can  be  to  you  a  scientific 
and  sufficient  explication  of  the  universe,  which,  by  re- 
ducing it  to  mere  matter  and  motion,  leaves  no  place  nor 
object  for  the  exercise  of  a  part  of  your  nature  so  tender, 
so  noble,  so  true,  and  so  good  ?  Something  in  my  heart 
responds  to  the  opening  sentence  of  the  proclamation 
under  which  we  meet  to-day,  that  this  custom  of  public 
thanksgiving  to  Almighty  God  is  "  as  wise  as  it  is  beau- 
tiful." What  my  aesthetic  nature  calls  for,  a  universe 
fit  for  me  to  live  in,  must  respond  to,  through  a  spirit 
of  intelligence,  beauty,  and  love. 

^  Professor  Ernst  Haeckel,  of  Jena,  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  His- 
tory of  Creation^  makes  a  proper  distinction  between  scientific  mate- 
rialism and  moral  or  ethical  materialism,  and  justly  protests  against 
the  imputation  of  the  belief  and  practice  of  the  latter  to  those  who 
advocate  the  former,  which  he  prefers  to  call  Monism.  Professor 
Tyndall  and  Mr.  Proctor  likewise  take  pains  to  defend  themselves 
against  the  charge  of  moral  delinquency  in  their  scientific  teachings. 
It  is  a  shame  to  the  advocates  of  religion  that  there  should  be  any 
occasion  for  such  a  protest  on  the  part  of  men  of  science.  All  per- 
sonal imputation  should  be  ruled  out  of  a  discussion  which  is  of 
equal  import  to  science  and  religion.  At  the  same  time  it  would  re- 
lieve the  books  and  lectures  of  Tyndall  and  Proctor  of  a  tiresome 
element,  if  these  gentlemen  could  be  made  to  understand  that  their 
personal  faith  or  feeling  upon  subjects  of  which  no  one  should  sus- 
pect them  of  "knowledge,"  is  of  very  little  consequence  to  the  gen- 
eral public. 


THE  SENTIMENT  OF  PATRIOTISM.  285 

II.  The  second  test  to  which  I  would  subject  the  sys- 
tems of  Lucretius  and  Paul  is  the  sentiment  of  patriot- 
ism. This  also  grows  directly  out  of  the  occasion  that 
has  brought  us  together.  This  is  the  American  Thanks- 
giving Day  ;  and  our  gratitude  grows  more  tender  and 
sacred  as  we  think  to-day  of  that  nation  of  which  we  are 
thankful,  and  in  foreign  lands  —  oh  so  thankful  to  be 
members  ! 

For  nothing  am  I  more  proud  of  my  country  than  that 
she  knows  what  she  has  to  be  thankful  for ;  and  from 
President  to  peasant  dares  to  be  thankful  before  a  mate- 
rialistic and  gainsaying  age.  In  America  we  respect  the 
tenacity  with  which  the  German,  though  naturalized, 
clings  to  memories  of  his  Fatherland ;  and  the  devotion 
with  which  the  Frenchman,  refusing  to  be  naturalized, 
dreams  of  making  his  Paradise  in  la  belle  France.  Even 
John  Chinaman  commands  a  tear  of  sympathy  that  he 
thinks  the  soil  from  which  he  digs  his  gold  not  good 
enough  to  lay  his  bones  in,  but  provides  that  these  shall 
be  carried  back  to  the  Celestial  Kingdom. 

"  Breathes  there  the  man  with  soul  so  dead 
Who  never  to  himself  hath  said, 
This  is  my  own,  my  native  land  !  " 

But  why  a  soul  that  itself  consists  of  nothing  but 
atoms,  even  though  "  these  are  exceedingly  round  and 
minute,"  ^  should  have  such  a  transcendent  passion  for 
coarser  bodily  atoms  round  about  it,  the  atoms  that  com- 
pose my  understanding  are  not  "  nimble "  ^  enough  to 
discern.  Why  do  we  foster  with  such  reverent  care  the 
art,  the  literature,  the  monuments  of  a  nation,  identify 
ourselves  with  its  past,  and  transmit  this  with  ourselves 
to  posterity  ?     Whence  the  sentiment  of  national  honor, 

^  Lucretius,  1.  iii.  179. 

2  Lucretius,  I.  iii.  186.  See,  also,  Shakespeare,  "  nimble  spirits," 
Lovers  Labor's  Lost,  iv.  3. 


286  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

pride,  humiliation,  hope  —  all  that  goes  to  make  the 
moral  personality  of  a  nation,  if  we  are  but  atoms 
brought  together  by  no  intelligence,  if  at  death  these 
atoms  of  our  minds,  like  those  of  our  bodies,  are  to  be 
used  to  manure  the  growth  of  plants  and  feed  the  life 
of  animals  ?  What  place  is  there,  then,  for  the  patriotic 
and  historic  sentiment  in  a  nation  ?  It  was  with  full 
knowledge  of  nature  and  science  that  Du  Bois  Raymond 
declared  it  absolutely  and  forever  inconceivable  that  a 
number  of  carbon,  hydrogen,  nitrogen,  and  oxygen  atoms 
should  be  otherwise  than  indifferent  as  to  their  own  posi- 
tion and  motion,  past,  present,  or  future.  It  is  utterly 
inconceivable  how  consciousness  should  result  from  their 
joint  action.!  ^^d  it  is  still  more  inconceivable  how 
from  any  number  of  atomic  structures,  originated  by 
matter,  consisting  only  of  matter,  exercising  purely  ma- 
terial functions,  and  then  returning  to  matter,  there 
should  arise  that  continuity  of  existence  which  is  the 
national  life,  that  historic  consciousness  which  is  the 
national  soul.^  If  we  are  not  the  product  of  intelli- 
gence, is  there  aught  of  intelligence  in  that  which  we 
produce  ?  is  there  any  more  of  spirit  in  the  printed  word 
than  in  the  type  that  print  it?  any  more  of  skill  in  the 
art  of  painter  and  sculptor  than  in  the  fortuitous  forma- 
tions of  nature  ?  Who  or  what  shall  determine  this,  if 
mind  and  soul  are  bodily  ?  And  what  is  there  worth 
preserving  or  transmitting  where  body,  soul,  and  spirit, 
nations,  lands,  and  seas  are  all  alike  parts  in  the  endless 
flux  and  reflux  of  atoms  ? 

But  on  the  spiritual  system  of  the  universe  I  can  un- 
derstand how  minds  can  work  together  for  the  future, 
how  patriot  spirits  can  labor  for  posterity,  how  the 
thinkers  of  one  generation  can  cherish  the  thoughts  of 

1  Address  at  Leipzig,  1872. 

'  See,  also,  Das  Lehen  der  Seek,  von  Professor  Dr.  M.  Lazarus. 


THE  SENTIMENT  OF  PHILANTHROPY.  287 

the  past,  and  add  to  their  heritage  for  after  ages,  and  do 
this  with  the  feeling  that  there  is  a  pUm  and  purpose 
over  nations ;  yes,  with  Paul's  doctrine  of  men  and 
things,  I  can  even  rise  to  his  unrivaled  utterance  of  self- 
sacrificing  patriotism,  "  I  could  wish  that  myself  were 
accursed  from  Christ  for  my  brethren,  my  kinsmen  ac- 
cording to  the  flesh  :  Who  are  Israelites,  to  whom  per- 
taineth  the  adoption,  and  the  glory,  and  the  covenants, 
and  the  giving  of  the  law,  and  the  service  of  God,  and 
the  promises:  Whose  are  the  fathers,  and  of  whom,  as 
concerning  the  flesh,  Christ  came,  who  is  over  all,  God 
blessed  forever."  ^  Yet  patriotism  is  not  the  highest  of 
the  moral  virtues  ;  and  a  domineering  antagonism,  or  a 
blind  Chaiivinisme  too  often  abuse  its  name. 

III.  But  in  harmony  with  true  patriotism,  and,  in- 
deed, emerging  out  of  it,  is  the  spirit  of  philanthropy, 
—  regard  for  mankind  as  having  a  community  of  rights 
and  interests,  and  also  in  hopes  and  destiny.  Nowhere 
in  modern  literature  is  this  spirit  more  beautifully  pre- 
sented than  by  Goethe,  in  answer  to  the  charge  of  lack 
of  patriotism  during  the  national  movement  of  1813- 
1814.  In  a  conversation  with  Soret,  in  1830,  Goethe 
said,  "  National  hatred  is  quite  a  peculiar  thing.  You 
will  always  find  that  it  is  strongest  and  fiercest  in  the 
lowest  stages  of  culture.  But  there  is  also  a  stage  where 
it  entirely  disappears,  where  one  stands  to  some  extent 
above  the  nations,  and  sympathizes  with  the  weal  or  woe 
of  a  neighbor  people  as  with  that  of  one's  own.  This 
latter  stage  of  culture  suited  my  nature,  and  I  had  con- 
firmed myself  in  it  long  before  reaching  my  sixtieth  year." 

To  this  test  of  philanthropy  I  would  now  submit  the 
systems  of  Lucretius  and  Paul.  Their  relations  to  this 
higher  culture  I  can  sum  up  in  very  few  words.  Lucre- 
tius laughed  at  the  superstitions  and  miseries  of  man- 
1  Rom.  ix.  1-5. 


288  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

kind  ;  Paul  pitied  them.  Lucretius  wrapped  himself 
aloof  from  the  world  in  pride ;  Paul  took  the  whole 
world  to  his  heart  in  prayer.  The  contrast  was  not 
merely  personal ;  it  lay  in  the  systems,  and  is  radical 
and  irreconcilable.  Just  what  the  philosophy  of'  Lucre- 
tius on  "  the  nature  of  things  "  caused  him  to  think  of 
his  fellows,  just  how  it  made  him  feel  toward  them,  him- 
self has  told  us  in  the  opening  of  his  second  book. 

"  It  is  sweet,  when  on  the  great  sea  the  winds  trouble 
its  waters,  to  behold  from  land  another's  deep  distress ; 
not  that  it  is  a  pleasure  and  delight  that  any  should  be 
afflicted,  but  because  it  is  sweet  to  see  from  what  evils 
you  are  yourself  exempt.  It  is  sweet,  also,  to  look  upon 
the  mighty  struggles  of  war  arrayed  along  the  plains 
without  sharing  yourself  in  the  danger.  But  nothing  is 
more  welcome  than  to  hold  the  lofty  and  serene  positions 
well  fortified  by  the  learning  of  the  wise,  from  whicjh 
you  may  look  down  upon  others,  and  see  them  wander- 
ing all  abroad  and  going  astray  in  their  search  for  the 
path  of  life,  —  see  the  contest  among  them  of  intellect,  the 
rivalry  of  birth,  the  striving  night  and  day  with  surpass- 
ing effort  to  struggle  up  to  the  summit  of  power  and  be 
masters  of  the  world.  O  miserable  minds  of  men  !  O 
blinded  breasts  I  in  what  darkness  of  life,  and  in  how 
great  dangers  is  passed  this  term  of  life  whatever  its  du- 
ration !  not  choose  to  see  that  Nature  craves  for  herself 
no  more  than  this,  that  pain  hold  aloof  from  the  body, 
and  she  in  mind  enjoy  a  feeling  of  pleasure  exempt  from 
care  and  fear."  ^ 

To  recover  ourselves  from  the  shudder  that  this  cold 
scorn  of  humanity  gives  us,  we  must  turn  to  Paul,  a  man 
by  nature  as  proud  and  fiery  as  Lucretius,  and  nursed 
beyond  exception  in  pride  of  race  and  religion,  fed  by 
the  flattery  of  teachers  and  rulers.  Yet  this  "  Hebrew 
1  L.  ii.  1-20. 


THE  DOCTRINES  OF  PAUL.  289 

of  the  Hebrews,"  this  "  Pharisee  of  the  Pharisees,"  this 
free-born  Roman,  this  petted  pupil  of  Gamaliel,  this 
haughty  commissioner  of  the  Sanhedrim,  this  thinker  and 
orator,  who,  in  the  consciousness  of  his  powers  and  liis 
cause,  could  refute  judges,  dispute  with  philosophers,  ad- 
monish kings,  wrote  to  a  little  band  of  converted  pagans 
living  in  contempt  at  the  capital,  "  I  long  to  see  you, 
that  I  may  impart  unto  you  some  spiritual  gift ;  I  am 
debtor  both  to  the  Greeks  and  to  the  barbarians,  both  to 
the  wise  and  to  the  unwise."  ^  Ah  !  my  friends,  noth- 
ing makes  man  so  great  and  noble  as  the  thought  that 
he  is  a  child  of  God,  and  that  all  men  share  this  parent- 
age. It  is  the  nature  of  an  atom  to  agglomerate ;  it  is 
the  nature  of  God  to  give.  Some  men  have  a  talent 
for  the  infinitely  little,  and  it  is  well  for  the  world  there 
are  such  minute  investigators,  and  well  for  themselves, 
when  one  knows  how  to  connect  the  little  with  the 
great.  But  it  is  bad  for  the  vision  to  be  always  looking 
through  the  microscope.  There  are  men  who  spend 
their  lives  in  rolling  atoms  together  as  the  beetle  rolls  its 
ball,  till  they  fancy  that  this  ball  they  have  rolled  up  is 
the  universe,  and  look  down  with  swelling  pride  upon 
the  ants  that  it  crushes  as  it  rolls.  Development  through 
the  struggle  for  existence  by  the  law  of  the  strongest 
tends  to  exclusiveness  and  selfish  pride ;  but  the  posses- 
sion of  gifts  bestowed  from  some  higher  source  of  life 
and  power  inclines  to  a  generous  impartation  to  others : 
"  Freely  ye  have  received,  freely  also  give."  ^  By  so 
much  as  Paul  had  received  of  the  wisdom  and  knowl- 
edge of  God,  by  so  much  did  he  feel  himself  a  debtor 
alike  to  the  Greek  who  despised  his  race,  and  the  barba- 
rian whom  his  race  ^despised.  How  patient  he  was  of 
human  errors  and  infirmities,  how  sympathetic  with  hu- 
man sorrows,  "  showing  all  meekness  unto  all  men,"  that 

1  Rom.  i.  14.  2  jiatt.  x.  8. 

19 


290  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

he  might  win  them  to  the  truth  ;  renouncing  the  honors 
and  ambitions  of  his  youth,  working  with  his  own  hands, 
accepting  bonds  and  stripes  and  imprisonment,  that  he 
might  deliver  men  from  the  superstitions  and  errors  that 
Lucretius  made  a  mock  of,  and  willing  to  brave  shi[>- 
wreck,  that  he  might  rescue  the  struggling  mariners  that 
Lucretius  laughed  at  from  his  complacent  footing  on  the 
shore.  "  We  were  gentle  among  you,"  Paul  writes  to 
the  Thessalonians,  "  even  as  a  nurse  cherisheth  her  chil- 
dren ;  so  being  affectionately  desirous  of  you,  we  were 
willing  to  have  imparted  unto  you,  not  the  gospel  of 
God  only,  but  also  our  own  souls,  because  ye  were  dear 
unto  us."  ^  It  has  been  finely  said  that  Christianity 
first  wakened  "an  enthusiasm  for  humanity;"  and  un- 
der the  Roman  Empire,  in  days  of  slavery  and  caste  on 
the  one  hand,  and  conquest  and  colonization  on  the 
other,  Paul  gave  the  precepts,  "  Honor  all  men  ;  "  ''  Owe 
no  man  anything,  but  to  love  one  another."  ^  The  key 
to  this  all-embracing  philanthropy  was  given  in  his 
speech  at  Athens:  first  the  feeling  of  patriotism  in  the 
fact  that  God  has  assigned  to  each  nation  the  bounds  of 
its  habitation,  and  furnished  it  with  gifts  and  opportuni- 
ties of  its  own  ;  and  next  the  feeling  of  philanthropy  in 
the  fact  that  all  these  nations  thus  divinely  parceled  out 
are  of  one  origin,  children  of  one  Father,  their  hearts 
beating  with  one  blood.  The  highest  motive  for  the 
love  of  man  is  given  in  the  thought  that  this  universe  is 
our  Father's  house,  and  we  are  his  offspring. 

IV.  To  advance  a  step  higher,  let  us  test  these  two 
systems  of  the  universe,  in  their  adaptation  to  collec- 
tive humanity,  for  its  recovery  or  relief  from  the  sorest 
evils  with  which  it  has  always  been  oppressed.  Though 
Lucretius  mocked  at  human  failures  and  miseries,  in 
another  mood  he  sought  to  mitigate  them.  The  latter 
1  TLess.  ii.  7,  8.  «  Roni.  xiii.  8. 


THE  RELIEF  OF  HUMAN  ILLS.  291 

part  of  his  third  book,  from  v.  870,  is  devoted  to  this  end. 
It  is  almost  impossible  to  condense  his  argument,  or  give 
it  fairly  in  modern  forms  of  speech  ;  but  if  you  will  read 
it  attentively,  I  think  you  will  agree  with  me  that  he 
here  falls  quite  below  himself  in  the  beggarly  motives 
that  he  presents  for  a  noble  and  happy  life.  The  sum 
and  substance  of  it  all  is,  that  the  troubles  and  sorrows 
of  men  either  grow  out  of  their  superstitions  or  are 
aggravated  by  these  ;  that  the  remedy  is  to  learn  the 
nature  of  things,  and  adjust  ourselves  to  the  fact  that 
things  always  were,  and  always  shall  be,  as  they  are  — 
that  living  and  dying  went  on  for  ages  before  our  birth, 
and  shall  go  on  unendingly  after  our  death,  when  we 
shall  sink  into  the  sleep  that  knows  no  waking.  He  can 
furnish  us  nothing  higher  nor  stronger  than  this,  wherp- 
with  to  cope  with  "  the  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to."  This 
poverty  of  motive  lies  in  his  system.  Materialism  has 
invented  names  and  terms  enough  to  fill  a  lexicon  of  its 
own,  but  among  these  all  you  find  no  such  words  as  re- 
covery, restoration,  redemption,  applied  to  the  world  and 
its  needs.  But  how  can  any  system  cover  humanity,  or 
even  touch  upon  it,  that  fails  of  this  ?  I  press  this  point 
the  more  earnestly,  as  fatal  to  the  materialistic  scheme 
of  the  universe.  Tyndall  tries  to  meet  it,  or  rather  to 
evade  it,  by  constantly  asserting  that  all  such  questions 
belong  to  the  feelings,  and  are  therefore  outside  the  do- 
main of  knowledge  and  of  science  ;  that  the  difficulties 
they  raise  against  the  conclusions  of  "  pure  intellect  "  are 
due  to  the  fact  that  "  reason  is  traversed  by  the  emo- 
tions." If  this  were  so,  by  what  right  does  he  assign  to 
"  pure  intellect "  this  exclusive  preeminence  over  the 
emotions  as  a  part  of  the  constitution  of  man  to  be  sat- 
isfied in  the  constitution  of  nature  ?  He  admits  that 
materialism  cannot  pretend  "  to  be  a  complete  philosophy 
of  the  human  mind,"  and  that  "  what  is  really  wanted  is 


292  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

the  lifting  power  of  an  ideal  element  in  human  life." 
But  shall  this  "  ideal  "  power  be  a  chimera  of  the  feel- 
ings, a  fantasy  of  the  imagination,  with  no  base  of  fact 
or  knowledge  ?  In  what  respect,  then,  would  it  be  better 
than  a  superstition,  which  does  not  "  lift  up"  but  de- 
grade? Haeckel  tells  us  that  "scientific  materialism 
positively  rejects  every  belief  in  the  miraculous,  and 
every  conception,  in  whatever  form  it  appears,  of  super- 
natural processes.  Nowhere  in  the  whole  domain  of 
human  knowledge  does  it  recognize  real  metaphysics,  but 
throughout  only  physics."  ^  And  Tyndall  says  of  the 
power  manifested  in  the  universe,  "  I  dare  not,  save 
poetically,  use  the  pronoun  He  regarding  it ;  I  dare  not 
call  it  a  mind  ;  I  refuse  to  call  it  even  a  cause."  ^  Thus 
materialists  claim  a  monopoly  of  the  visible  universe,  and 
deny  to  men  the  conception  of  any  other.  But  here  is 
man  in  the  universe,  and  of  it,  with  most  potent  agencies 
of  being,  with  most  insatiable  desires  and  needs,  to  which 
a  materialistic  universe  utterly  fails  to  respond.  That 
cannot  be  a  scientific  account  of  the  universe  that  is 
dumb  to  what  is  most  vital  and  urgent  in  the  chief  known 
factor  of  the  system  —  man. 

Science  has  not  solved  that  problem  of  moral  evil  that 
pervades  the  whole  structure  of  society,  and  seems  to  be 
woven  into  the  very  texture  of  human  life.  Helpful  as 
science  has  been,  and  promises  yet  to  be,  in  the  mitiga- 
tion of  outward  forms  of  evil,  and  the  possible  avoidance 
of  some  evils  in  the  future,  it  has  not  so  much  as 
furnished  the  elements  for  resolving  that  evil  which  the 
history,  the  legislation,  and  the  conscience  of  mankind 
unite  in  stamping  as  moral,  and  therefore  personal  and 
responsible.  Science  multiplies  its  inventions,  and  the 
genius  of  destruction  seizes  upon  these  to  make  war  more 

^  History  of  Creation,  chap.  1. 

*  Fortnightly  Review,  Nov.  1,  1875. 


SCIENCE  DOES  NOT  REMOVE  MORAL  EVIL.       203 

sweeping,  certain  and  terrible  in  its  woes.  Science  pur- 
sues its  analysis  of  nature  to  the  molecules  in  which  she 
had  hidden  her  subtlest  powers,  and  crime  takes  ad- 
vantage of  these  to  invent  new  means  of  fraud  and 
murder,  and  to  elude  detection.  Year  by  year,  scientific 
associations,  congresses  for  education,  social  science,  law 
reform,  meet  for  the  advancement  of  mankind  in  knowl- 
edge and  happiness  —  I  rejoice  in  such  gatherings,  and 
meet  with  them  ;  —  year  by  year  they  bring  forth  some- 
thing for  the  advantage  of  society  in  health,  in  morals, 
and  in  peace ;  but  their  processes  are  all  too  slow  and  too 
superficial  for  the  healing  of  the  world,  that  still  sins 
and  suffers,  and  suffers  and  sins,  through  the  groaning 
ages.  Development  has  not  yet  eradicated  this  root  of 
evil ;  natural  selection  has  not  yet  secured  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  in  that  moral  sphere  upon  which  human 
welfare  depends ;  social  science  has  not  lifted  human 
nature  to  the  point  where  it  no  more  tends  to  go  astray. 
Side  by  side  with  Bristol  associations  and  Brighton 
congresses  are  Whitechapel  murders  and  drunken  brutes 
beating  their  wives  ;  so  that  every  upward  step  in  civil- 
ization seems  contrasted  by  a  lower  deep  of  barbarism. 
The  world  cries  out  for  redemption  ;  its  soul  complains, 
"  I  know  there  are  evils  without  me,  which  the  eternal 
Strife  of  atoms  has  not  worn  away,  and  the  grinding  of 
the  everlasting  laws  has  not  reduced  to  powder,  but  I 
find  a  deeper  evil  within,  for  which  nature  yields  no 
remedy  and  no  recompense."  The  heart  in  moments  of 
agony  cries  out  for  relief ;  but  atoms  piled  mountain 
high  only  echo  back  its  wail,  and  the  laws  that  bind  the 
universe  together  are  walls  of  adamant  to  such  a  cry.  In 
some  hour  of  darkness,  of  fear,  of  despair,  I  lift  up  my 
voice,  "  Hear,  O  heavens,  give  ear  O  earth !  "  but  the 
heavens  are  brass  over  my  head,  the  earth  is  iron  unde- 
ray  feet  ;    but  I    now  lift  my  voice    to    the  Father   in 


294  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

Heaven,  and  the  iron  dissolves  ;  I  am  on  the  footstool  of 
prayer ;  the  gates  of  brass  burst  asunder,  and  heaven 
and  earth  commingle  in  the  light  and  air  of  love.  All 
laws  now  bend  before  the  supreme  majesty  of  that  law  of 
love,  which  is  God.  I  find  myself  in  the  higher  universe 
of  moral  laws,  and  here,  for  fall  is  recovery,  for  sin  is 
redemption,  for  death  is  life.  And  this  system  of  the 
universe  I  feel  to  be  true  ;  my  needs  confess  it,  my  heart 
accepts  it,  my  soul  rejoices  in  it,  and  emancipated  from 
the  nature  of  things,  I  rise  to  the  author  of  things,  and 
join  the  triumphant  doxology  of  Paul,  "of  Him,  and  to 
Him,  and  through  Him  are  all  things,  to  whom  be  glory 
forever." 

V.  We  come  now  to  the  final  test  of  these  systems  in 
their  application  to  that  feeling  of  hope  which  is  native 
and  imperishable  in  man,  and  to  that  cheerful  and 
beneficent  working  that  should  realize  the  hopes  of  hu- 
manity. It  may  fitly  characterize  the  system  of  Lu- 
cretius to  say,  there  is  no  hope  in  it ;  and  it  was  a  fitting 
commentary  on  such  a  system  that  he  who  framed  it, 
seeing  nothing  to  live  for  and  nothing  to  hope  for,  should 
end  his  life  by  his  own  hand.  Not  that  I  would  charge 
the  suicide  of  Lucretius  as  a  crime  upon  his  system  or 
himself.  So  far  from  being  put  under  the  ban  of  priestly 
superstition,  or  the  more  mercenary  ban  of  life  insurance 
companies,  the  suicide  should  be  looked  upon  with  a 
tender,  even  sacred  pity,  as  the  victim  of  meytal  or  moral 
disease.  Yet  when  Lucretius  was  so  tempted,  we  find  in 
his  system  nothing  of  the  hope  that  could  have  restrained 
the  hand  which  had  written,  "  After  death  there  will  re- 
main no  self,"  —  that  is,  no  conscious  personality,  —  and 
"  no  one  wakes  up  upon  whom  the  chill  cessation  of  life 
has   once  come."  ^     Thus  we  see  this   proud  master   of 

*  "  Nee  qinsquam  expergitus  exstat, 
Friglda  quem  semel  est  vital  pausa  seouta." 

L.  iii.  027. 


THE  SENTIMENT  OF  UOPE.  295 

the  material  universe  succumbing  to  the  fate  that  befalls 
his  atoms. 

In  that  same  capital  where  in  the  height  of  his  fame 
Lucretius  threw  away  his  life,  we  see  the  aged  Paul  a  pris- 
oner in  chains ;  of  earthly  toils,  trials,  conflicts,  griefs, 
the  labor  and  the  weariness  of  life,  he  has  had  as  much  as 
any  man  could  experience  or  bear  ;  he  knows  that  the 
end  is  near ;  in  the  feeble  light  of  his  dungeon,  his  hand 
chained  to  the  guard  ;  without,  the  sentry  and  the  axe  of 
the  executioner,  he  writes  these  last  words  to  his  beloved 
Timothy :  "  I  am  now  ready  to  be  offered,  and  the  time 
of  my  departure  is  at  hand  ;  I  have  fought  a  good  fight, 
I  have  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept  the  faith ;  hence- 
forth there  is  laid  up  for  me  a  crown  of  righteousness, 
which  the  Lord  the  righteous  judge  shall  give  me  at  that 
day,  and  (O  great,  loving,  magnanimous  heart  of  Paul !) 
not  to  me  only,  but  unto  all  them  also  that  love  his  ap- 
pearing. The  Lord  shall  deliver  me  from  every  evil 
work,  and  will  preserve  me  unto  his  heavenly  kingdom  ; 
to  whom  be  glory  forever  and  ever."  ^  Who  would  not 
trample  worlds  of  atoms  under  his  feet  to  live  in  a  uni- 
verse of  such  hopes,  such  issues,  such  glorious  rewards  ? 
Let  the  man  that  is  within  you  answer  which  is  the  fit- 
ting universe  for  you.  To  all  that  Lucretius  has  said  of 
"the  nature  of  things,"  I  oppose  the  nature  of  Man. 
That  most  self-sacrificing  of  patriots,  gentlest  of  spirits, 
purest  of  men,  Joseph  Mazzini,  once  said  to  me,  "These 
materialistic  questions  belong  to  i\\Qlcitchenoi  humanity  ; 
it  is  the  soul  of  humanity  that  I  care  for."  All  that  is 
true  in  Darwin,  Paul  not  only  knew  theoretically,  but 
felt  within  himself.  He  knew  how  much  of  the  animal 
he  had  inherited  from  his  progenitors  —  that  low  ma- 
terialistic untamed  "  law  in  his  members"  working:  ever 
toward  sin  and  death  —  but  he  opposed  to  this  "  the  law 
1  2  Tim.  iv.  6-9. 


296  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

of  the  spirit  of  life;"  and  in  the  struggle  to  be  a  man 
secured  the  survival  of  the  fittest,  in  the  triumph  of  spirit 
over  matter.  And  from  this  personal  experience,  this  in 
ward  knoivledge  of  spiritual  power,  he  held  up  tlie  torch 
of  hope  for  humanity :  "  We  are  saved  by  hope.  The 
wliole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  together 
waiting  for  the  manifestation  of  the  sons  of  God,"  when 
even  the  material  creation  "  shall  be  delivered  from  the 
bondage  of  corruption  into  the  glorious  liberty  of  the 
children  of  God."  ^  How  grand  the  vista  here  opened 
of  the  future  of  humanity,  and  not  of  man  alone,  but  of 
all  nature,  organic  and  inorganic,  through  the  restitution 
and  perfection  of  humanity.  These  notes  of  hope  and 
triumph  go  sounding  and  echoing  through  the  ages,  like 
the  Fifth  Symphony  of  Beethoven,  that  cannot  loose  its 
hold  upon  the  theme,  but  recovers  it  again  and  again, 
and  rising  from  gentlest  cadences  gathers  in  volume  and 
majesty,  till  it  might  rouse  atoms  to  life  and  wake  the 
dead;  — so  comprehensive,  so  inexhaustible  is  the 
thought  of  Paul  concerning  man  and  the  order  of  things 
with  which  he  is  related.  ^  But  the  scheme  of  Lucretius 
admits  of  no  expansion.  It  is  shut  down  within  its  own 
horizon :  rather  it  is  shut  up  within  a  cavern  of  endless 
gloom,  where  those  who  enter  must  bid  farewell  to  hope. 
The  scheme  of  Paul  has  made  peoples  wiser  and  better 
in  the  degree  that  they  have  accepted  it ;  it  wants  but  to 
be  accepted  in  its  completeness,  to  fill  the  world  with  light 
and  peace  and  joy.  It  carries  in  itself  the  future  of  all 
poetry  and  prophecy,  and  they  who  teach  it  are  mes- 
sengers of  gladness  and  joy.     But  how  can  the  followers 

^  Rom.  vili.  19-25. 

^  Tyndall  seems  puzzled  at  *' the  wonderful  plasticity  of  the  the- 
i.«tic  idea,  wliieh  enables  it  to  maintain,  through  many  changes,  its 
hold  upon  superior  minds."  Has  he  never,  then,  read  that  "  in  Ilim 
was  life,  and  the  life  was  the  Uyht  of  men  V  " 


THE  SURVIVAL  OF  Till-:  FITTEST.  297 

of  Lucretius  exult  in  such  a  system  ?  Does  tlje  physician 
put  on  airs  of  mirth  and  exultation  when  he  tells  his 
})atient  there  is  no  hope  ?  Yet  this  message  of  despair  is 
what  the  priests  of  materialism  bring  from  the  arcana  of 
nature.  One  would  tliink  they  would  go  forth  in  sack- 
cloth and  ashes,  with  inverted  torches,  to  the  grave  of  all 
things.  Against  a  nature  of  such  origin  and  end,  1  pit 
my  own  manhood,  and  do  not  fear  the  issue.  Would  I 
cherish  the  tender,  graceful  sentiment  of  gratitude?  then 
must  I  follow  Paul,  and  not  Lucretius.  Would  I  yield 
to  the  noble  impulses  of  patriotism  ?  then  must  I  follow 
Paul,  and  not  Lucretius.  Would  I  rise  to  the  magnani- 
mous heights  of  philanthropy  ?  then  must  I  follow  Paul, 
and  not  Lucretius.  Would  I  help  mankind  in  their  sor- 
rows, deliver  them  from  their  superstitions,  raise  them 
from  their  sins?  then  must  I  follow  Paul,  and  not  Lucre- 
tius. Would  I  lift  myself  and  my  race  to  immortal 
hopes  ?  then  must  I  drop  Lucretius,  and  follow  Paul  to 
the  life  everlasting. 

That  life  is  mine,  by  every  title  of  nature  and  of  spirit. 
If  I  am  the  product  of  Nature's  upward  striving,  I  have 
a  right  to  demand  that  nature  shall  stand  by  her  work, 
and  not  burlesque  her  own  laws.  If  her  law  be  "  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,"  then  I,  as  the  fittest,  must  and 
will  survive.  Nature  herself  cannot  reduce  me  to  ob- 
livion, and  give  immortality  to  atoms.  With  this  con- 
scious spiritual  life  I  defy  her  power.  Whatever  its  ori- 
gin, whether  struck  out  as  a  spark  from  flinty  atoms,  or 
stolen  from  heaven,  it  is  mine  ;  and  not  rock,  chains, 
nor  vulture,  not  billows,  tempest,  nor  thunderbolt  of 
Jove,  not  all  the  powers  of  nature,  death,  and  hell 
shall  compel  me  to  part  with  it.  Nature  may  have  the 
atoms  that  encompass  me,  but  cannot  have  me.^     And  if 

^  "You  cannot  satisfy  the  human  understanding  in  its  demand 
for  logical  continuity  between  molecular  processes  and  the  phenom- 


298  LUCRETIUS  OR  PAUL. 

in  this  visible  material  universe  there  is  no  place  where 
this  quickening,  yearning,  mounting,  joying  spirit  of 
mine  can  find  its  sphere,  there  is  that  within  me  that 
will  find  or  force  its  way  out  of  such  a  universe  to  one 
where  the  fittest  do  survive.  But  the  way  to  that  sphere 
of  spiritual  and  immortal  powers  is  already  open  ;  though 
tracked  with  tears  and  blood,  made  sure  and  bright  for 
us  by  the  man  our  brother,  who,  passing  through  the 
gates  of  death,  has  gone  before  —  Ilim  "  who  was  dead, 
but  is  alive  forever  more,  and  has  the  keys  of  hell  and 
death."  1  "  Thanks  be  unto  God,  wlio  giveth  us  the  vic- 
tory, through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  ^ 

ena  of  consciousness.     This  is  a  rock  on  which  materialism  must  in- 
evitably split  whenever  it  pretends  to  be  a  complete  philosophy  of 
the  human  mind."  —  Tyndall,  Fortnightly  Renew,  November,  1875. 
1  Rev.  i.  18.  •  2  1  Cor.  xv.  57. 


NOTE   TO    PACK    278. 

It  is  the  fashion  with  materialists  to  ridicule  this  mode  of  argu- 
ment as  having  no  basis  of  "  knowledge."  They  mislead  themselves 
by  assuming  (1)  that  knowledge  can  only  be  objective.  But  when  I 
know  a  thing  as  an  object,  in  the  same  instant  I  know  the  fad  that 
1  know  this  thing.  The  knowing  the  thing  requires  simultaneously 
these  two  other  knowledges — the  knowledge  of  Me  and  of  My 
knowing.  If  any  one  denies  this,  I  can  only  apply  to  him  the  words 
of  Lucretius  (1.  iv.  408)  :  "  If  a  man  believe  that  nothing  is  known, 
he  knows  not  whether  this  even  can  be  known,  since  he  admits  lie 
knows  nothing.  I  will  therefore  decline  to  argue  the  case  with  him 
who  places  himself  with  head  where  his  feet  should  be." 

Materialists  mislead  tlieniselves,  also,  by  assuming  that  a  convic- 
tion based  upon  sensible  phenomena  is  necessarily  and  always  more 
certain  as  a  ground  of  action  than  a  fact  of  couBciousness  or  a  con- 
clusion or  belief  that  rests  upon  moral  evidence  or  metaphysical  rea- 
soning. Mankind  act  upon  these  latter  in  ten  cases  to  one  of  objec- 
tive knowledge.  Professor  Tyndall  insists  upon  limiting  knowledge 
and  certainty  to  facts  perceived  by  the  senses  (^Fortnightly  Review^ 
November,  1875);  and  says:  "  The  Power  which  I  see  manifested  in 
the  universe  I  dare  not,  save  poetically,  use  the  pronoun  lie  regard- 


NOTE  ON  TYNDALL.  299 

ing  it;  1  dare  not  call  it  a  mind;  I  refuse  to  call  it  even  a  cause." 
Now,  I  have  never  seen  Mr.  Tyndall,  but  should  he  appear  before 
my  eyes  at  this  moment,  could  I  be  made  a  whit  more  certain  of  his 
existence  than  I  already  am  through  his  writings  ?  Moreover,  with 
no  disrespect  to  Mr.  Tyndall  or  his  atomic  theory,  the  power  which 
I  see  manifested  in  these  writings  I  dare  not  call  a  mind ;  and,  by 
precisely  the  same  method,  the  power  that  I  see  manifested  in  Tyn- 
dall himself  I  even  dare  call  an  intelligent  cause. 

Since  Professor  Tyndall  cries  out  for  "  knowledge,"  I  beg  to  di- 
rect his  attention  to  some  knowable  things  of  which  one  marvels  to 
find  him  so  oblivious.  In  his  Belfast  address  he  tells  us  that  "the 
merchant  had  rendered  the  philosopher  possible.  ...  In  those  re- 
gions where  the  commercial  aristocracy  of  ancient  Greece  mingled 
with  its  eastern  neighbors,  the  sciences  were  born."  Can  it  be  pos- 
sible that  Professor  Tyndall  does  not  know  what  had  been  accom- 
plished on  the  Nile,  in  mathematics,  mechanics,  astronomy,  applied 
chemistry,  ages  before  Greece  was  born,  and  how  the  Greek  philos- 
ophers owned  their  indebtedness  to  Egypt?  Again  in  the  Fort- 
nightly Review,  November,  1875,  he  speaks  of  the  Mosaic  cosmog- 
ony as  finally  abandoned.  False  interpretations  of  that  cosmogony, 
due  to  ignorance  of  Hebrew  and  to  the  realistic  philosophy,  have  in- 
deed been  abandoned.  But  can  it  be  possible  Professor  Tyndall 
does  not  know  that  ages  before  geology  was  dreamed  of,  Augustine, 
as  a  Hebrew  "scholar  had  said,  "  These  are  the  ineffable  days  (dies 
ineffahiles)  of  the  infinite  Jehovah."  He  also  terms  them  iiaturce, 
natures,  and  morce,  pauses  or  delays  (Z)e  Genesi  ad  Literam,  I.  ii.  c.  14). 
Surely  Mr.  Tyndall  should  know  things  within  the  reach  of  every 
scholar,  and  not  trust  to  the  guidance  of  such  an  authority  as  Pro- 
fessor Draper.  In  teaching  others,  he  should  first  find  out  what  they 
already  know ;  otherwise  the  originality  of  his  Fog  Signals  may  be 
disputed-. 


XIII. 

FINAL    CAUSE  ;   A   CRITIQUE    OF    THE    FAILURE    OF 
PALEY  AND  THE  FALLACY  OF  HUME. 

(Read  before  the  Victoria  Institute,  London,  in  1879.) 

In  his  "  History  of  English  Thouglit  in  the  Eighteentli 
Century,"  Mr.  Leslie  Stephen  pays  an  earnest  and  im- 
partial tribute  to  the  two  writers  of  that  period,  who 
were  the  foremost  disputants  upon  the  doctrine  of  a  final 
cause  in  nature  as  proving  the  existence  of  God, — 
David  Hume  and  William  Paley.  Of  Hume  he  says  : 
"  We  have  in  his  pages  the  ultimate  expression  of  the 
acutest  skepticism  of  the  eighteenth  century,  —  the  one 
articulate  statement  of  a  philosophical  judgment  upon 
the  central  questions  at  issue."  ^  A>id  again:  "Hume's 
skepticism  completes  the  critical  movement  of  Locke.  It 
marks  one  of  the  great  turning-points  in  the  history  of 
thought.  From  his  writings  we  may  date  the  definite 
abandonment  of  the  philosophical  conceptions  of  the  pre- 
ceding century,  leading,  in  some  cases,  to  an  abandon- 
ment of  the  great  questions  as  insoluble  ;  and,  in  others, 
to  an  attempt  to  solve  them  by  a  new  method.  Hume 
did  not  destroy  ontology  or  theology,  but  he  destroyed  the 
old  ontology  ;  and  all  later  thinkers,  who  have  not  been 
content  with  the  mere  dead  bones  of  extinct  philosophy, 
have  built  up  their  systems  upon  entirely  new  lines."  ^ 

Of  Paley  Mr.  Stephen  says  :  "  The  natural  theology 
^  Ch«p.  vi.  sec.  3.  ^  Chap.  iii.  sec.  43. 


LE6L1E  STEPHEN  ON  PALEY  AND  HUME.       801 

lays  tlie  basis  of  his  whole  system.  The  book,  whatever 
its  philosophical  shortcomings,  is  a  marvel  of  skillful 
stjitenient.  It  states,  with  admirable  clearness  and  in  a 
most  attractive  form,  the  argument  which  has  the  greatest 
popular  force,  and  which,  duly  etherealized,  still  passes 
muster  with  metaphysicians.  Considered  as  the  work  of 
a  man  who  had  to  cram  himself  for  the  purpose,  it  would 
be  difficult  to  praise  its  literary  merits  too  highly.  The 
only  fault  in  the  book,  considered  as  an  instrument  of 
persuasion,  is  that  it  is  too  conclusive.  If  there  were  no 
bidden  flaw  in  the  reasoning,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
understand,  not  only  how  any  should  resist,  but  how  any 
one  should  ever  have  overlooked,  the  demonstration."  ^ 

In  the  history  of  polemics  there  is  hardly  another  in- 
stance of  such  collapse  of  popularity  as  has  befallen  the 
book,  the  style  and  method  of  which  Mr.  Stephen  has 
here  so  justly  praised.  The  argument  of  Paley  was  re- 
garded by  theologians  of  his  time  as  invincible ;  and  his 
illustrations  from  nature  were  so  attractive  to  youth  that 
his  "  Natural  Theology  "  was  adopted  as  a  text-book  in 
colleges.  Upon  the  basis  of  his  famous  axiom  was  built 
up  the  series  of  "Bridgewater  Treatises,"  in  which 
anatomy  and  physiology,  astronomy,  geology,  and  various 
branches  of  physics  were  brought  to  illustrate  and  es- 
tablish the  evidence  of  design  in  nature.  So  keen  a 
logician  as  Archbishop  Wliately  used  his  acumen  to 
adapt  Paley 's  reasoning  to  the  later  discoveries  and  de- 
velopments of  science  ;  and  so  careful  a  physicist  as  Dr. 
Whewell  led  his  "  Induction  of  the  Physical  Sciences " 
up  to  the  same  conclusion.  Yet  to  the  present  genera- 
tion, within  less  than  eighty  years  from  its  first  appear- 
ance, Paley's  "  Natural  Theology  "  is  already  antiquated 
as  to  its  once  brilliant  and  conclusive  demonstrations,  and 
as  an  authority  is  well-nigh  obsolete. 

2  Chap.  viii.  iv.  38. 


302  FINAL  CAUSE. 

Quite  otherwise  has  been  the  fate  of  Hume.  INIr. 
Stephen  reminds  us  that  "  his  first  book  fell  dead-born 
from  the  press ;  few  of  his  successors  had  a  much  better 
fate.  The  uneducated  masses  were,  of  course,  beyond 
his  reach  ;  amongst  the  educated  minority  he  had  but 
few  readers ;  and  amongst  the  few  readers  still  fewer 
who  could  appreciate  his  thoughts."  ^  Add  to  this  that 
Hume,  though  deeming  himself  a  match  for  the  philo- 
sophers and  theologians  of  his  time,  had  a  secret  dread  of 
that  religious  pugnacity  in  the  common  people  of  Scot- 
land, which  is  so  quickly  roused  against  an  assailant  of 
popular  beliefs,  and  therefore  kept  back,  to  be  published 
after  his  death,  his  "  Dialogues  on  Natural  Religion,"  — 
the  book  most  fitted  to  provoke  that  acrimonious  criti- 
cism which  insures  literary  success.  Now,  however,  with- 
in a  century  of  its  first  appearance,  we  find  this  masterly 
product  of  Hume's  dialectics  still  acknowledged  as  the 
standard  treatise  of  philosophical  skepticism.  Scotch 
philosophers  since  his  day  have  labored  to  reform  philos- 
ophy in  the  light  of  Hume's  criticism  ;  Kant  attempted 
to  refute  his  skepticism  ;  John  Stuart  Mill  virtually  built 
upon  Hume;  and  he  has  lately  been  revived  in  Germany, 
with  the  honor  of  translation  and  the  prestige  of  au- 
thority. His  fame  grows  with  time.  This  is  due  partly 
to  the  beauty  of  Hume's  style,  and  the  clearness  and 
depth  of  his  reasoning ;  due  also  to  the  decline  of  the- 
ological asperity,  and  the  growth  of  a  tolerant  spirit 
among  various  schools  of  thought ;  and  due  not  a  little 
to  the  tone  of  audacity,  —  or  what  he  himself  styled  "  a 
certain  boldness  of  temper,"  —  with  which  Hume  assailed 
convictions  which  had  come  to  be  accepted  as  axioms 
both  in  philosophy  and  in  religion.  And  I  am  of  opinion 
also  that  no  small  part  of  the  favor  which  has  accrued 
to  Hume  is  due  to  the  metaphysical  fallacies  which 
iCbap.  i.  1. 


TWO   OBJECTIONS  TO  PALEY.  803 

liavG  sprung  up  side  by  side  with  tlie  scientific  facts 
which  have  discredited  Paley.  The  whole  history  of  sci- 
ence discloses  a  disposition  to  metaphysical  speculation 
awakened  by  each  new  discovery  in  physical  nature. 
With  every  fresh  deposit  of  facts  upon  the  borders  of 
science  comes  a  fresh  brood  of  fallacies  upon  the  adjacent 
borders  of  hypothesis ;  and  the  progenitors  of  these  have 
a  natural  affinity  for  the  greatest  of  skeptics,  who  was 
notably  the  dupe  of  his  own  fallacies.  This  phenomenon 
of  the  simultaneous  generation  of  fact  and  fallacy  is  it- 
self worthy  of  scientific  investigation.  But  it  is  enough 
to  note  it  here  as  showing  that  the  failure  of  Paley's 
demonstration  of  God  in  nature  should  not  drive  us  over 
to  Hume's  contradiction,  which  is  demonstrably  a  fallacy. 

Paley's  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  an  end  in  nature 
was  from  the  first  open  to  these  two  objections. 

(1.)  Instead  of  formulating  a  proposition  to  be  proved, 
or  pointing  to  the  sources  from  which  the  conviction  of 
its  truth  arises  in  the  mind,  Paley  tacitly  assumed  the 
thing  in  question,  and  wrapped  this  assumption  in  a 
self-repeating  phrase  which  he  sought  to  strengthen  by 
multifarious  illustrations. 

(2.)  Assuming  that  design  or  contrivance  exists  in  the 
whole  field  of  nature,  Paley  was  betrayed  into  the  use 
of  illustrations,  sometimes  far-fetched,  sometimes  super- 
ficial or  lacking  confirmation,  which  wear  the  appearance 
of  making  out  a  case. 

"  There  cannot  be  design  without  a  designer,  contriv- 
ance, without  a  contriver,"  was  the  axiom  upon  which 
Paley  built  up  his  treatise.  He  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  aware  —  at  least,  he  takes  no  notice  of  the  fact  — 
that  Hume  had  assailed  this  axiom,  and  the  very  illustra- 
tion of  the  watch  by  which  Paley  so  triumphantly  asserts 
it,  at  the  one  point  at  which  it  might  be  vulnerable,  and 
if  vulnerable,  then  worthless  to  Paley's  end,  namely,  that 


804  FINAL   CAUSE. 

the  axiom  rests  solely  upon  experience,  and  holds  only 
within  the  range  of  possible  human  action  and  observa- 
tion. Though  Hume's  assertion  is  a  fallacy,  yet  he  had 
put  it  so  plausibly  that  Paley  could  not  afford  to  pass  it 
by  ;  and  by  leaving  his  fundamental  premise  open  to 
doubt  and  contradiction,  Paley  failed  to  establish  the  ex- 
istence of  a  Supreme  Being  from  traces  of  design  in  na- 
ture, however  curious  and  multiplied.  Indeed,  he  him- 
self fell  into  the  common  fallacy  of  begging  the  question 
in  the  very  statement  of  it. 

That  design  implies  a  designer  is  as  obvious  as  that 
thought  imphes  a  thinker ;  but  the  materialist  denies 
personality  to  the  thinking  substance  ;  and  to  apply  the 
term  design  to  every  hint  of  adaptation  in  nature,  in  the 
sense  of  an  intelligence  shaping  matter  to  an  end,  is  to 
assume  the  existence  of  God  in  the  very  form  of  prov- 
ing it. 

It  was  also  an  error  of  Paley  that  he  sought  to  make 
out  the  goodness  of  the  end,  as  part  of  the  evidence  of  a 
supreme  contriver ;  or  at  least  to  show  the  preponderance 
of  good  over  evil  in  apparent  ends.  In  this  endeavor  he 
was  sometimes  so  unfortunate  as  to  throw  the  weight  of 
his  illustration  into  the  opposite  scale.  Thus,  in  assert- 
ing that  "  teeth  were  made  to  eat,  not  to  ache,"  he 
failed  to  dispose  of  the  fact  that  tliey  do  ache,  as  an  ob- 
jection to  any  ruling  design  in  their  structure  and  com- 
position. Their  aching  is  not  always  due  to  some  viola- 
tion of  nature,  since  wild  beasts  in  our  zoiilogical  gar- 
dens sometime  require  dental  surgery.  It  will  not  quiet 
the  jumping  tooth-ache,  nor  ease  a  neuralgic  nerve,  to  as- 
sure the  sufferer  that  teeth  and  nerves  were  not  made  for 
the  purpose  of  giving  pain.  Indeed,  it  is  quite  a  popular 
fancy  that  nerves  are  demons  of  evil.  The  whence  and  the 
wherefore  of  evil  must  be  taken  into  view  in  forming  an 
estimate  of  the  end  for  which  a  thing  was  made,  of  unity 


PA  LEY'S   VIEWS  RE-STATED.  805 

and  wisdom  in  its  design,  or  of  any  purpose  whatever  in 
its  existence.  But  the  question  of  a  final  cause  in  things 
is  not  to  be  set  aside  by  some  single  characteristic  or 
quality  of  a  thing  which  seems  to  mark  it  as  useless  or 
even  injurious. 

That  every  event  argues  a  cause  is  an  intuitive,  not  an 
experimental,  conviction  of  the  human  mind.  Whether 
the  cause  is  intelligent  and  purposing,  or  is  only  a  mate- 
rial or  an  accidental  antecedent,  is  to  be  determined  by 
observation  and  analysis  of  the  thing  itself  in  its  place 
and  its  relations.  Moral  qualities  or  purposes,  suggested 
by  certain  properties  of  a  thing  as  inhering  in  the  cause, 
—  if  cause  there  be,  —  do  not  necessarily  enter  into  the 
proof  of  the  existence  of  an  intelligent  cause,  which 
might  be  either  good  or  evil.  Stripping  Paley's  state- 
ment of  its  verbal  assumptions,  and  setting  aside  such  of 
his  illustrations  as  are  crude  or  antiquated,  his  funda- 
mental argument  for  the  Creator  as  evinced  by  the  traces 
of  design  in  nature  is  not  only  tenable  in  face  of  the  more 
recent  discoveries  of  science,  but  is  illustrated  and  con. 
firmed  by  a  far  richer  array  of  natural  phenomena  than 
Paley  had  ever  imagined.  We  may  improve,  however, 
upon  his  statement  of  the  doctrine  of  final  causes  as 
follows:  The  perceived  collocation  or  combination  of 
phenomena  or  forces  in  nature  toward  a  given  result, 
produces  in  the  mind  the  immediate  conviction  of  an 
intelligent  purpose  behind  such  phenomena  and  forces. 
This  statement,  while  it  retains  the  essence  of  Paley's 
axiom,  avoids  his  logical  vice  of  including  in  the  defini- 
tion the  very  term  to  be  defined.  A  fixed  series  of 
events  may  be  mechanical ;  but  the  comhination  of  sev- 
eral independent  series  of  phenomena  toward  a  distinct- 
ive result  must  be  referred  to  Thought  purposing  that 
event.  Nature  with  all  her  forces  and  material  has  never 
produced  a  single  thing  that  answers  to  the  idea  of  an 

20 


806  FINAL   CAUSE. 

invention.  This  is  always  the  product  of  human  intelli- 
gence applied  to  the  powers  and  substances  of  nature. 
The  contrivance  seen  in  a  machine  instantly  refers  us  to 
-the  mind  as  its  cause.  Thus,  electricity  is  a  power  ever}'- 
■where  present  in  nature  ;  yet  electricity  has  never  pro- 
duced an  electrical  machine,  an  electric  telegraph  or  tel- 
ephone, or  an  electric  light.  But  though  nature  cannot 
turn  her  own  powers  into  a  practical  machine,  and  the 
least  hint  of  an  adaptation  of  these  powers  to  the  pur- 
poses of  man  suggests  the  intervention  of  the  human  in- 
tellect, yet  the  natural  powers  which  man  subordinates 
to  his  intelligent  uses  remain  greater  and  more  wonder- 
ful than  the  inventions  to  which  they  are  applied.  Are 
then  the  powers  and  substances  of  nature  which  stand,  as 
it  were,  waiting  for  the  touch  of  the  inventor's  genius  to 
make  them  available  wherever  mind  shall  lead  the  way, 
themselves  mere  things  of  chance  or  products  of  material 
law  with  no  intent  in  their  existence  ?  When  made 
available  do  they  proclaim  intelligence,  and  yet  is  the 
marvelous  property  of  availability  only  a  meaningless 
phenomenon  of  matter?  Hitherto  the  phraseology  of 
the  doctrine  of  design,  and  the  illustrations  of  the  doc- 
trine, have  had  a  certain  coarseness  of  fibre,  suggesting 
a  mechanical  universe  turned  out  by  what  Cowper  styles 
*'  the  great  Artificer  of  all  that  moves,"  and  needing  the 
constant  oversight  of  the  Maker  to  keep  it  in  working 
order.  The  sublime  personifications  of  the  creation  in 
the  Bible  have  been  literalized  by  our  matter-of-fact  phi- 
losophy, as  though  the  differential  calculus  could  measure 
the  astronomy  of  Job  or  of  the  19th  Psalm.  But  sci- 
ence, by  bringing  us  into  nearer  contact  with  what  Tyn- 
dall  has  called  the  "  subsensible  world,"  has  at  once  en- 
larged the  sphere  of  our  vision,  and  heightened  its 
powers.  Teleology  addresses  itself  to  some  finer  sense 
within.     It  widens  its  circle  without  changing  its  centre. 


BAERENBACU  AND  ZELLER.  807 

The  mechanism  of  the  universe  drops  away,  and  we  find 
or  feel  the  Thought  of  the  Infinite  Mind  projecting  itself 
in  the  actual  through  finite  forms,  and  combining  and 
comprehending  the  whole  in  an  ever-unfolding  purpose. 
Hence,  we  may  say,  with  Von  Baerenbach,  "  Darwin  has 
not  rendered  teleology  impossible  under  any  and  every 
form,  but  has  conducted  philosophical  science  to-  another 
and  the  true  conception  of  design."  ^  True,  Von  Bae- 
renbach would  find  the  solution  of  the  universe  in  Zio- 
nism ;  but  his  testimony,  from  a  scientific  point  of  view, 
shows  that  the  question  of  causality  will  not  be  put  down, 
and  that,  after  all  sciences,  nature  persistently  demands 
the  wherefore  of  her  own  phenomena. 

Zeller,  of  Berlin,  in  his  paper  read  before  the  Acad- 
emy of  Science,  "  upon  the  Teleological  and  the  Mechan- 
ical Interpretations  of  Nature  in  their  application  to  the 
Universe,"  seeks  to  combine  the  necessary  in  nature  with 
the  purposive  in  reason.  "  Since,  on  all  sides,  the  inves- 
tigation of  nature,  so  far  as  it  has  been  carried,  shows  us 
a  firm  linking  together  of  cause  and  effect,  we  must  as- 
sume from  the  coherence  of  all.  phenomena  that  the  same 
holds  also  of  those  which  have  not  yet  been  investigated 
and  explained  ;  that  everything  in  the  world  proceeds 
from  its  natural  cause,  according  to  natural  laws  ;  and 
therefore  nothing  can  here  be  brought  in  of  the  interven- 
tion of  an  active  purpose  bearing  upon  this  fixed  result, 
distinct  from  natural  necessity.  Yet  we  cannot  consider 
these  natural  causes  as  barely  mechanical ;  for  their  ef- 
fects reach  far  beyond  that  which  can  be  explained  by 
motion  in  space,  or  resolved  into  such  motion.  And  if 
from  these  same  causes  along  with  inorganic  nature,  life 
also,  and  along  with  irrational  life  also  conscious  and 
rational  existence  have  appeared,  not  as  it  were  by  mere 

^  Gedanken  ueber  die  Teleologie  in  der  Natur,  von  Friedrich  von 
Baerenbach.     Berlin,  1878,  p.  5. 


308  FINAL  CAUSE. 

accident  in  course  of  time,  but  necessarily  by  virtue  of 
their  natures,  do  proceed  and  ever  have  proceeded ;  if 
the  world  never  can  have  been  without  life  and  intelli- 
gence, since  the  same  causes  which  now  produce  life  and 
reason  must  already  from  eternity  have  worked,  and 
therefore  have  produced  these  continually,  so  must  we 
call  the  world,  as  a  whole,  in  spite  of  the  natural  neces- 
sity which  rules  in  it,  indeed,  hither  on  account  of  this, 
at  the  same  time  the  work  of  absolute  reason.  That  this 
reason  should  have  been  guided  in  its  action  by  proposed 
ends  is  indeed  not  necessary.  .  .  . 

"  Yet,  inasmuch  as  it  is  one  and  the  same  cause  from 
which  in  the  last  analysis  all  effects  spring,  inasmuch  as 
all  the  laws  of  nature  only  show  the  art  and  manner  in 
which  these  causes,  following  the  necessity  of  their  exist- 
ence, work  toward  many  sides,  so  from  the  totality  of 
these  operations  must  necessarily  proceed  a  world  harmo- 
nious in  all  its  parts,  a  world  complete  in  its  way,  and 
arranged  with  absolute  conformity  to  purpose."  ^ 

A  point  of  still  higher  moment  to  the  argument  Zeller 
has  quite  overlooked,  namely,  that  in  no  case  could  the 
mechanical  theory  be  adequate  to  the  solution  of  the  uni- 
verse. Motion,  indeed,  might  account  for  all  the  phe- 
nomena of  physics,  with  the  exception  of  motion  itself. 
But,  after  all  the  facts  of  mechanism  are  disposed  of, 
there  remain  the  facts  and  forces  of  vitalism,  which  re- 
fuse to  be  included  under  mechanism.  Motion  cannot 
originate  life,  neither  can  chemistry  create  or  evolve  life. 
"We  may  analyze  life  into  all  its  constituents  and  condi- 

^  It  is  a  groundless  assumption  of  Zeller  that  because  life  I'.s-  it  lias 
always  been;  an  assumption  not  warranted  l)y  the  law  of  scientific 
induction.  The  rule  of  experience  by  which  physicists  would  bind 
us  forbids  such  a  generalization  upon  phenomena  of  which  there  is 
no  possible  record.  This  is  not  scientific  testimony,  but  speculative 
hypothesis. 


HUME'S  POSITIONS.  309 

tions,  but  cannot  detect  the  life  itself.  We  may  com- 
bine all  the  constituents  and  conditions  of  life,  but  can- 
not produce  life.  Tlie  living  organism  we  know,  but  the 
mind  demands  the  cause  of  life-organization,  and  sees 
that  this  does  not  lie  in  mechanism.  The  mechanism  of 
the  universe  may  be  concluded  within  motion  and  the 
correlation  of  forces ;  but  force  is  a  quality,  not  a  cause, 
and  motion  demands  an  origin,  and  beyond  both  lie  the 
immensities  of  vitalism  and  of  intelligence. 

Hume  attempted  to  break  down  the  teleological  argu- 
ment by  assailing  the  conception  of  cause  and  effect.  He 
maintained  that  "order,  arrangement,  or  the  adjustment 
of  final  causes,  is  not  of  itself  any  proof  of  design,  but 
only  so  far  as  it  has  been  experienced  to  proceed  from 
that  principle,"  and  also,  that  our  experience  of  design, 
from  the  operations  of  the  human  mind,  cannot  furnish 
,an  analogy  for  "the  great  universal  mind,"  which  we 
thus  assume  to  be  the  author  of  nature.  Hence,  accord- 
ing to  Hume,  before  we  could  infer  "  that  an  orderly 
universe  must  arise  from  some  thought  and  act,  like  the 
human,  it  were  requisite  that  we  had  experience  of  the 
origin  of  worlds,  and  it  is  not  sufficient,  surely,  that  we 
have  seen  ships  and  cities  arise  from  human  art  and  con- 
trivance." 

The  first  position  of  Hume  is  refuted  by  the  universal 
consciousness  of  mankind.  Most  assuredly  our  belief 
that  any  particular  object  in  which  we  perceive  the  adap- 
tation of  parts  to  each  other,  or  of  means  to  an  end,  must 
have  proceeded  from  a  designing  cause,  does  not  arise 
out  of  a  previous  observation  or  experience  of  such  cause 
in  objects  of  the  same  class.  Of  the  millions  of  men  who 
wear  watches,  how  very  few  have  ever  seen  the  parts  of 
a  watch  formed  and  put  together !  Yet  every  possessor 
of  a  watch  is  sure  that  it  had  a  maker ;  and  this  convic- 
tion could  not  be  strengthened  by  his  going  to  Geneva 


810  .  FINAL   CAUSE. 

and  seeing  watches  made  by  Land,  or  to  Waltham  and 
seeing  them  made  by  machinery. 

The  first  maker  of  a  watch  had  no  "  experience  "  to 
follow.  He  used  his  own  inventive  skill.  The  watch 
existed  in  his  mind  before  he  shaped  it  in  metal.  And 
when  the  first  watch  was  completed  it  testified  of  itself 
to  every  observer,  of  the  designing  mind  and  the  cunning 
hand  which  had  produced  it.  And  this  because,  as 
Hume  himself  says,  "  Throw  several  pieces  of  steel  to- 
gether without  shape  or  form  ;  they  will  never  arrange 
themselves  so  as  to  complete  a  watch."  This  is  not  an 
inference  from  the  study  of  such  a  casual  heap  of  steel, 
but  is  an  immediate  and  irresistible  cognition  of  the  hu- 
man mind.  One  does  not  need  to  trace  the  loose  bits  of 
steel  from  their  entrance  at  one  end  of  the  factory  to 
their  emergence  as  a  completed  watch  at  the  other,  in 
order  to  be  satisfied  that,  at  some  point  of  their  course, 
a  designing  hand  has  adjusted  them  to  each  other.  The 
perceived  adjustment  produces  this  conviction  instanta- 
neously ;  and  no  amount  of  experience  could  render  the 
conviction  more  certain.  The  con"viction  that  a  particu- 
lar combination  of  means  for  an  end  is  the  product  of  a 
designing  cause  is  not  at  all  dependent  upon  the  '*  expe- 
rience "  of  such  cause  in  like  cases. 

Neither  does  the  conviction  that  adaptation  proceeds 
from  design  rest  upon  "  experience  "  in  any  case  what- 
ever. That  tlie  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end  proceeds 
from  an  intelligent  and  purposing  foresight  of  that  end 
is  an  intuitive  conviction  of  the  human  mind.  To  be 
convinced  of  this  casual  connection  the  mind  requires 
neither  argument  nor  observation  ;  it  could  accept  no 
other  explanation  of  the  existence  of  the  event.  The 
mind  assumes  this  casual  relation  of  intelligence  to  adap- 
tation, in  those  very  observations  of  nature  or  discoveries 
of  inventive  skill  which  Mr.  Hume  would  include  in  the 
term  "  experience." 


THE  APPEAL   TO  EXPERIENCE.  311 

As  the  print  of  a  human  foot  upon  the  sand  gave  to 
Robinson  Crusoe  the  immediate  conviction  that  there 
was  another  man  upon  what  he  had  supposed  to  be  his 
uninhabited  island  ;  as  the  impressions  of  feet,  tak^ns, 
fins,  vertebras,  embedded  in  rock,  certify  the  geologist  of 
extinct  races  ;  so  does  the  least  token  of  adaptation  at 
once  articulate  itself  with  the  conception  of  design. 

In  the  gravel-beds  of  the  Somme  were  picked  up  at 
first  a  few  flint  stones,  bearing  rude  marks  of  having 
been  shaped  for  use.  No  human  remains  were  associated 
with  them.  The  beds  in  which  they  lay  were  hitherto 
supposed  to  antedate  the  appearance  of  man  ;  yet  these 
shapen  flinta  produced  in  every  observer  the  instanta- 
neous conviction  that  man  was  there  at  the  period  of  this 
formation.  When  once  the  eye  had  satisfied  itself  that 
these  forms  were  not  the  result  of  natural  attrition,  were 
not  worn  but  shaped,  —  that  this  flint,  however  rudely 
shaped,  was  intended  for  a  knife  or  a  hatchet,  this  block 
for  a  hammer,  this  pointed  stone  for  a  spear,  —  the  mind 
at  once  pronounced  it  the  work  of  man.  The  adaptation 
points  to  design,  and  the  design  points  to  a  grade  of  hu- 
man intelligence.  It  does  not  matter  that  we  cannot 
divine  the  specific  use  of  this  or  that  implement ;  if  the 
object  itself  shows  that  it  was  shaped  for  gome  use,  if  it  is 
not  merely  a  stone  but  an  implement,  there  springs  up  at 
sight  of  it  the  necessary  conviction  that  this  was  the  work 
of  a  designing  cause.  Hence  Hume's  appeal  to  "ex- 
perience "  is  fallacious  in  the  general  as  well  as  in  the 
particular. 

Equally  fallacious  is  Hume's  objection  to  the  analogy 
from  the  products  of  human  design  to  the  works  of  a 
higher'intelligence.  The  scale  of  the  works,  the  vastness 
of  the  intelligence  requisite  to  have  conceived,  and  of  the 
power  to  have  executed  them,  have  no  place  in  the  con- 
viction of  design.     This  arises   from  the  single  fact  of 


312  FINAL  CAUSE. 

adaptation^  whether  seen  in  the  wheels  of  a  watch  or  of 
a  locomotive,  in  the  point  of  a  pin  or  the  lever  of  a  steam- 
engine,  in  the  antennse  of  an  ant  or  the  proboscis  of  an 
elephant.  Could  Lord  Rosse's  telescope  itself  be  pro- 
jected by  a  series  of  lenses  to  the  farthest  star  within  its 
field,  this  immensity  of  adaptation  would  no  more  ex- 
haust the  principle  than  does  the  actual  size  of  the  tele- 
scope as  compared  with  the  eye  of  a  beetle.  Size,  number, 
magnitude,  have  no  relation  to  the  notion  of  adaptation, 
which  in  and  of  itself  produces  the  conviction  of  design. 

Moreover,  the  human  mind  is  the  only  possible  unit  by 
which  we  may  compute  the  operations  of  "  the  universal 
mind."  If  we  drop  the  argument  from  design,  and  fall 
back  upon  ontology,  still  the  finite  mind  which  we  know 
in  consciousness  is  the  only  agent  by  which,  through  anal- 
ogy, contrast,  or  negation,  we  can  attain  to  a  conception 
of  the  Infinite. 

The  very  observations  which  Hume  would  classify  un- 
der "  experience "  must  be  made  and  recorded  by  this 
self-same  mind ;  and  no  man  has  a  higher  confidence  in 
the  scope  and  the  trustworthiness  of  its  powers  than  the 
philosopher  who  attempts  to  account  for  the  existence  of 
nature  without  either  a  cause  or  an  end.  But  as  our  con- 
ception of  causality  and  of  personality,  derived  from  con- 
sciousness, is  capable  of  being  projected  from  ourselves 
into  the  infinite  or  "universal"  mind, — just  as  we  can 
project  a  mathematical  line  or  circle  into  infinite  space, 
—  so  adaptation  seen  in  nature  reflects  our  conception  of 
design  up  to  the  highest  heaven  and  back  to  the  farthest 
eternity. 

The  mathematician  does  not  pretend  to  comprehend 
the  infinities  or  the  infinitesimals  which  he  nevertheless 
conceives  of  as  quantities  in  his  calculations.  It  would 
require  his  life-time  to  count  up  the  billions  which  he 
handles  so  freely  on  a  sheet  of  paper.     The  mind  which 


FALLACIES  OF  HUME.  313 

can  conceive  of  infinite  number  and  of  universal  space 
without  comprehending  eitlier,  can  also  derive  from  itself 
the  conception  of  a  "  universal  mind."  To  do  complete 
justice  to  Hume,  I  will  now  sum  up  his  argument  and 
my  reply.  In  his  essay  on  "  Providence  and  a  Future 
State  "  Hume  says :  — 

"  Man  is  a  being  whom  we  know  by  experience,  whose 
motives  and  designs  we  are  acquainted  with,  and  whose 
projects  and  inclinations  have  a  certain  connection  and 
coherence,  according  to  the  laws  which  nature  has  estab- 
lished for  the  government  of  such  a  creature.  When, 
therefore,  we  find  that  any  work  has  proceeded  from  the 
skill  and  industry  of  man,  as  we  ai'e  otherwise  acquainted 
with  the  nature  of  the  animal,  we  can  draw  a  hundred 
inferences  concerning  what  may  be  expected  from  him  ; 
and  these  inferences  will  all  be  founded  in  experience 
and  observation."  Hence,  he  concludes,  we  cannot 
"  from  the  course  of  nature  infer  a  particular  intelligent 
cause,  which  first  bestowed  and  still  preserves  order  in 
the  universe,"  ^  inasmuch  as  we  have  had  no  experience 
of  such  a  cause  in  nature  upon  which  to  ground  this  in- 
ference. 

At  least  three  oversights  or  misconceptions  are  ap- 
parent in  this  statement. 

(1.)  Mr.  Hume  overlooks  the  fact  that  each  man  is 
conscious  of  a  designing  faculty  within  himself,  and  does 
not  need  to  be  certified  of  the  adaptation  of  means  to 
ends  through  the  observation  of  this  faculty  in  other 
men.  There  was  a  time  when  a  first  man  invented  the 
first  machine,  or  adapted  something  to  his  own  ends  ;  and 
surely  he  had  no  experience  of  design  in  other  men  to 
create  faith  in  himself  as  a  designer.  He  put  forth  a 
conscious  power ;  his  experience  of  what  he  could  ac- 
complish confirmed  his  conception  of  design,  but  did  not 
^  Prov.  and  Fut.  Stale,  vol.  iv.  p.  168. 


314  FINAL   CAUSE. 

create  it.  So  it  is  with  us  all.  When  we  see  adaptation 
to  an  end,  we  say  at  once,  Here  was  an  intelligent  cause, 
and  this  not  because  we  have  observed  that  other  men 
have  produced  designs,  but  knowing  ourselves  as  intelli- 
gent designing  causes,  we  of  course  refer  adaptation  to 
intelligence. 

(2.)  This  points  us  to  Hume's  second  oversight ;  he 
fails  to  perceive  that  the  single  thing  to  which  adaptation 
refers  us  is  intelligence.  It  is  not  man  in  general  as  a 
being  or  an  animal,  but  the  intelligent  spirit  in  man  that 
is  immediately  and  indissolubly  connected  with  the  notion 
of  adaptation.  Man  does  many  things  that  are  purely 
animal ;  he  eats,  walks,  sleeps,  like  other  animals,  by  an 
instinct  or  a  law  of  his  nature,  aud  we  never  think  of  as- 
cribing such  acts  to  an  intelligence  superior  to  physicjil 
laws  and  functions.  But  the  adaptation  of  means  to 
ends  we  refer  directly  to  such  intelligence  ;  and  it  is  this 
thing  of  intelligence  that  differentiates  such  effects  from 
purely  physical  sequences  by  the  nature  of  tlieir  causes. 
Crunched  bones  on  a  desert  island  might  suggest  beasts 
of  prey,  but  a  cairn  suggests  man.  An  approach  to  such 
adaptation  on  the  part  of  the  beaver,  the  bee,  the  dog, 
the  ant,  disposes  us  to  clothe  such  animals  with  the  at- 
tribute of  reason.  And  on  the  same  principle  —  that  it 
is  intelligence  and  not  man  we  think  of  directly  we  per- 
ceive adaptation  —  do  we  refer  such  adaptation  in  nature 
to  an  intelligence  higher  than  nature  and  higher  than  man. 
It  is  intelligence  that  we  associate  with  adaptation,  and 
we  are  not  limited  to  intelligence  as  manifested  by  man 
as  an  animal  of  skill  and  industry.  In  point  of  fact  the 
great  advances  of  physical  science  in  recent  times  have 
been  due  more  to  the  imaginative  and  inventive  faculty 
prompting  investigation,  than  to  inference  from  experi- 
ence. Science  itself  looks  forward,  not  backward.  Its 
spirit  is  inquisitive,  and  its  discoveries  spring  from  the 


THE   ORIGIN  OF  IDEAS.  815 

desire  to  know  not  only  what  is,  but  why  it  is,  —  to  reach 
at  once  tlie  first  elements  of  things  and  their  final  cause. 

And  (3.)  Hume  has  overlooked  the  fact  that  when 
once  this  idea  of  the  connection  between  adaptation  and 
intelligence  has  entered  the  mind,  from  wliatever  source, 
it  does  not  require  to  be  renewed,  but  remains  always  as 
an  intuitive  perception  ;  no  amount  of  experiences  can 
strengthen  or  weaken  it,  and  this  for  the  reason  that  the 
conviction  of  a  designing  cause  does  not  rest  in  observa- 
tions or  experiences,  greater  or  less,  of  man  and  his  con- 
trivances, but  lies  in  the  thing  of  perceived  adaptation  ; 
it  does  not  require  a  knowledge  of  the  cause  or  source  of 
the  adaptation.  That  wherever  there  is  an  adaptation 
of  means  to  an  end  there  must  have  been  an  intelligent 
cause  is  an  intuition  of  the  mind.  This  term  intuition 
should  not  be  confounded  with  the  notion  of  innate  ideas. 
An  intuition  is  a  self-evident  truth  ;  the  mind  may  come 
to  the  knowledge  of  such  a  truth  in  various  ways  and 
by  many  processes ;  but  when  once  it  is  perceived,  it  is 
seen  to  be  true,  as  a  proposition  in  and  of  itself,  which 
no  amount  of  reasoning  or  of  evidence  could  make  clearer 
or  stronger  than  it  is  in  its  own  simple  statement.  For 
example,  the  sum  of  all  the  parts  is  together  equal  to  the 
whole.  (A  child  may  learn  this,  if  you  please,  by  trying 
it ;  but  once  gained  it  is  there.^  Everything  that  begins 
to  be  must  have  a  cause  ;  whatever  exists  must  exist  in 
time  and  in  space.  To  this  class  of  self-convincing  truths 
belongs  this  also,  that  the  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end 
springs  from  an  intelligent  and  designing  cause.  Under 
these  criticisms  of  common  sense  and  of  universal  con- 
sciousness Hume's  elaborate  structure  falls  to  the  ground. 

1  am  aware  that  this  reasoning  involves  the  intermi- 
nable controversy  between  sensation  and  consciousness 
as  the  originator  of  ideas.  But  it  is  clear  that  external 
phenomena  do  not  and  cannot  impart  to  us  the  idea  of  a 


316  FINAL   CAUSE. 

cause.  We  cannot  see  a  cause,  feel  a  cause,  hear  a  cause. 
What  we  perceive  in  nature  is  never  cause  as  a  substan- 
tial entity,  but  only  the  sequence  of  phenomena.  And 
yet  the  mind  unhesitatingly  affirms  of  every  phenomenon 
"which  actually  comes  to  pass,  that  it  is  not  self -origi- 
nated, but  must  have  had  a  cause.  Whence  has  the  mind 
this  conception  of  the  necessary  rehition  of  an  event  to 
a  cause  ?  I  answer  that  this  is  a  necessary  cognition  of 
the  human  mind,  given  in  and  of  the  mind  itself.  The 
mind  knows  itself  as  a  cause.  It  does  not  matter  here 
•whether  this  knowledge  be  spontaneous  or  the  result  of 
mental  experiences.  Of  the  first  origin  of  cognitions  in 
a  child,  the  first  realization  of  consciousness,  we  have  no 
possibility  of  record.  But  this  we  know,  that  there 
comes  to  every  mind  a  moment  when  it  awakes  to  the 
feeling:  "  I  can  "  and  "  I  will."  It  knows  the  Eeco  in  con- 
sciousness,  and  clothes  the  Ego  with  volition  and  with 
causality.  With  the  blow  of  a  hammer  I  break  a  crystal. 
We  say  the  blow  is  the  cause  of  the  fracture ;  and  this 
loose  use  of  the  term  cause  is  sanctioned  by  usage.  But 
where  and  what  is  the  cause?  In  the  hammer?  Or  in 
the  contact  of  the  hammer  with  the  crystal?  Does  it 
reside  in  the  hammer  ?  Or  is  it  developed  by  the  blow  ? 
There  is  no  sense  nor  instrument  fine  enough  to  detect  it. 
We  see  the  blow,  we  see  the  fracture,  but  not  ten  thou- 
sand such  experiences  would  enable  us  to  see  the  cause. 
The  cause,  you  will  say,  is  the  force  applied  behind  the 
hammer.  But  that  force  is  not  an  entity  ;  it  is  only  a 
quality  of  the  cause,  and  that  cause  is  the  power  which  is 
in  me  put  in  action  by  my  will.  All  force  is  but  cause 
in  action.  And  the  sublime  doctrine  of  universal  force 
points  of  necessity  to  universal  cause,  and  that  cause  in- 
telligent. Having  its  sole  idea  of  cause  through  the  con- 
sciousness of  itself  as  a  cause,  the  mind  intuitively  refers 
every  event  to  a  cause  adequate  in  power  and  wisdom  to 
the  result. 


TELEOLOGY  NOT  A  CURISTIAN  INVENTION.    317 

Even  upon  Hume's  own  principle,  the  thing  which 
"experience"  has  taught  us  is,  that  the  adaptation  of 
means,  or  the  collocation  of  materials /or  an  end,  must  be 
referred  to  an  intelligent  designer  purposing  that  end. 
And  the  world  has  grown  so  old  in  the  infallibility  of 
this  so-called  experience,  that  it  accepts  the  principle  as 
an  axiom  alike  in  its  application  to  a  watch  and  to  a 
world.  The  principle  being  recognized,  we  are  prepared 
to  apply  it  more  carefully  than  did  Paley  to  the  evidence 
of  nature  to  a  supreme  intelligent  cause. 

Teleology  is  not  an  invention  of  Christian  theology. 
In  perceiving  an  end  in  nature,  and  from  this  assuming  a 
divine  author  of  nature,  Plato  and  Aristotle  anticipated 
Paul  and  Augustine  ;  and  we  are  all  familiar  with  Cice- 
ro's reply  to  the  Epicurean  notion  that  the  world  was 
formed  by  a  chance  concourse  of  atoms.  "  He  who  be- 
lieves this  may  as  well  believe  that  if  a  great  quantity  of 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  made  of  gold  or  any  other 
substance,  were  thrown  upon  the  ground,  they  would  fall 
into  such  order  as  legibly  to  form  a  book,  say  the  '  An- 
nals of  Ennius.'  I  doubt  whether  chance  could  make  a 
single  line  of  them.  .  .  .  But  if  a  concourse  of  atoms  can 
make  a  world,  why  not  a  porch,  a  temple,  a  house,  a 
city,  which  are  works  of  less  labor  and  difficulty?  " 

]\Iany  of  the  witnesses  which  Paley  brought  forward 
to  establish  the  fact  of  design  in  nature  have  been  dis- 
credited through  the  searching  cross-examination  of  mod- 
ern science ;  and  some  have  even  been  so  twisted  and 
turned  as  to  lean  to  the  opposite  side.  But  what  then  ? 
This  impeachment  of  testimony  prejudices  the  jury,  but 
cannot  blind  an  impartial  judge  to  the  principles  which 
underlie  the  case.  Much  the  same  has  happened  in  ge- 
ology. Many  of  the  facts  relied  upon  by  earlier  geolo- 
gists have  been  modified  in  their  meaning  and  their  rela- 
tions, or  have  been  quite  set  aside  by   the  I'esearch  of 


318  FINAL   CAUSE. 

later  times.  Theories  have  changed  with  every  new 
master  of  the  science,  and  the  now-accepted  theory  of 
Lyell  may  yet  be  modified  by  the  results  of  deep-sea 
soundings  and  of  explorations  in  the  Sierra  Nevada. 
But  no  one  dreams  of  doubting  that  there  Is  in  the  struc- 
ture of  the  earth  a  foundation  for  a  science  of  geology. 
And  so  we  may  trace  there  a  foundation  for  a  science  of 
teleology,  all  the  more  clear  because  the  superficial 
mechanism  of  design  has  been  swept  away.  Indeed,  the 
very  terms  designer,  contriver,  smack  of  the  mechanical, 
the  coarse,  the  vulgar.  Professor  Tyndall,  who  certainly 
has  no  belief  in  final  cause  in  the  theological  sense,  is 
already  helping  us  to  finer  terms  for  teleology  itself;  and 
these  terms  occur  in  examples  best  fitted  to  illustrate  the 
finer  meanings  and  methods  of  this  science.  These  ex- 
amples are  found  in  heat  and  in  light. 

There  is  even  more  of  science  tlian  of  poetry  in  the 
saying  that  coal  is  "  bottled  sunlight."  For  what  pur- 
pose was  coal  produced,  but  that  it  should  serve  for  fuel  ; 
should  be  made  to  give  back  in  practical  and  beneficial 
uses  the  heat  it  had  condensed  from  the  sun  ?  And  for 
whose  use  intended  but  for  man  ?  Nature  in  her  opera- 
tions has  no  service  for  this  concentrated  extract  of  ferns 
and  trees.  No  animal  tribes  in  burrowing  or  foraging 
had  ever  sought  out  the  coal  or  applied  it  to  their  wants. 
But  when  man  had  need  of  other  fuel  than  the  surface 
of  the  earth  could  furnish  him,  there  lay  the  beds  of  coal 
ready  to  his  hand.  Can  we  resist  the  conviction  tiiat 
coal  was  provided  in  anticipation  of  the  coming  of  man 
—  stored,  so  to  speak,  in  the  cellar  of  his  future  abode  ? 
If  there  were,  indeed,  such  a  purpose  in  the  formation  of 
coal,  the  relation  between  the  purpose  and  the  result  is 
the  more  impressive  because  it  was  so  long  latent,  and 
required  ages  for  its  development.  Not  fact  and  form 
alone,  but  idea  and  intent  as  well,  are  in  process  of  de- 


TELEOLOGY  OF  TYNDALL.  819 

velopment.  The  plan  in  evolution  is  also  the  evolution 
of  a  plan.  Professor  Tyndali  has  given  us  the  very 
term  to  characterize  this  phenomenon.  "  Wood  and  coal 
can  burn  ;  whence  come  tlieir  heat,  and  the  work  pro- 
ducible by  that  heat?  From  the  immeasurable  reservoir 
of  the  sun,  Nature  has  proposed  to  herself  the  task  of 
storing  up  the  light  which  streams  earthward  from  the 
sun,  and  of  casting  into  a  permanent  form  the  most  fugi- 
tive of  all  powers.  To  this  end  she  has  overspread  the 
earth  with  organisms  which,  while  living,  take  in  the 
solar  light,  and  by  its  consumption  generate  forces  of  an- 
other kind.  These  organisms  are  plants.  The  vegetable 
world,  indeed,  constitutes  the  instrument  whei'eby  the 
wave-motion  of  the  sun  is  changed  into  the  rigid  form 
of  chemical  tension,  and  thus  prepared  for  future  use. 
With  this  prevision  the  existence  of  the  human  race  it- 
self is  inseparably  connected."  In  the  terms  which  I 
have  italicized,  teleology  is  so  etherealized  that  nothing 
remains  of  the  grossness  of  the  old  conception  of  the 
mechanism  of  the  universe.  Prevision  is  so  much  finer 
than  design  or  contrivance  !  We  no  longer  require  to 
see  either  the  watch  or  the  world  in  the  process  of  mak- 
ing ;  we  no  longer  hear  the  starting  of  the  machinery  ; 
but  as  in  Ezekiel's  vision  there  is  a  spirit  of  life  within 
the  wheels,  and  they  are  borne  on  mighty  wings. 

The  objection  to  this  illustration,  that  if  coal  were  in- 
tended for  the  use  of  man,  it  should  have  been  evenly 
distributed  over  the  globe,  and  upon  the  surface,  seems 
too  frivolous  for  a  philosophical  reply.  But  the  reply  is 
given  in  the  whole  nature  of  man,  and  in  the  totality  of 
the  ends  of  his  existence.  INlan  shall  not  live  by  coal 
alone.  The  distribution  of  the  earth's  products  gives 
rise  to  that  system  of  industries,  to  that  development 
of  energy,  skill,  foresight,  and  invention,  and  to  that 
brotherhood  of  humanity  which  comes  of  widespread  in- 


820  FINAL   CAUSE. 

tercourse,  which  render  human  existence  so  much  higher 
than  that  of  brutes. 

I  am  not  strenuous,  however,  for  this  ilhistration.  I 
have  adopted  it  because  a  leading  man  of  science  seems 
driven  to  teleology  to  account  for  the  fact  of  coal.  Thus 
teleology,  as  in  Harvey's  discovery  of  the  circulation  of 
the  blood,  is  often  the  guide  of  science  to  higher  ends. 

My  object  in  this  essay  is  not  to  prove  the  doctrine  of 
final  causes,  but  to  point  out  the  lines  of  proof,  —  in  the 
true  conception  of  causality,  and  in  the  wise  interpreta- 
tion of  those  more  subtle  phases  of  nature  which  science 
now  deals  with,  and  which  so  transcend  the  mechanical 
causes  of  Paley. 

As  with  heat,  so  with  light.  To  describe  the  web  of 
relations  subsisting  between  solar  light  and  the  media 
through  which  this  passes  to  the  human  eye,  Tyndall  has 
recourse  to  the  same  refinement  of  teleology. 

"  We  have,  in  the  first  place,  in  solar  light  an  agent  of 
exceeding  complexity,  composed  of  innumerable  constitu- 
ents refrangible  in  different  degrees.  We  find,  secondly, 
the  atoms  and  molecules  of  bodies  gifted  with  the  power 
of  sifting  solar  light  in  the  most  various  ways,  and  pro- 
ducing by  this  sifting  the  colors  observed  in  nature  and 
art.  To  do  this  they  must  possess  a  molecular  structure 
commensurate  in  complexity  with  that  of  light  itself. 
Thirdly,  we  have  the  human  eye  and  brain,  so  organized 
as  to  be  able  to  take  in  and  distinguish  the  multitude 
of  impressions  thus  generated.  The  light,  therefore,  at 
starting,  is  complex  ;  to  sift  and  select  it  as  tliey  do,  nat- 
ural bodies  must  be  complex  ;  while  to  take  in  tlie  im- 
pressions thus  generated,  the  human  eye  and  brain,  how- 
ever we  may  simplify  our  conceptions  of  their  action, 
must  be  highly  complex.  Whence  this  triple  complex- 
ity ?  If  what  are  called  material  purposes  were  the  only 
end  to  be  served,  a  much  simpler  mechanism  would  be 


GEOLOGICAL  REASONING.  821 

sufficient.  But,  instead  of  simplicity,  we  have  prodigal- 
ity of  relation  and  adaptation^ — and  this  apparently  for 
the  sole  purpose  of  enabling  us  to  see  things  robed  in  the 
splendor  of  color.  Would  it  not  seem  that  Nature  har- 
bored the  intention  of  educating  us  for  other  enjoyments 
than  those  derivable  from  meat  and  drink  ?  At  all 
events,  whatever  Nature  meant,  —  and  it  would  be  mere 
presumption  to  dogmatize  as  to  what  she  meant,  —  we 
find  ourselves  here  as  the  upshot  of  her  operations,  en- 
dowed with  capacities  to  enjoy  not  only  the  materially 
useful,  but  endowed  with  others  of  indefinite  scope  and 
application,  which  deal  alone  with  the  beautiful  and  the 
true."  1 

In  how  many  distinct  forms  and  phrases  in  the  two 
passages  cited  does  Mr.  Tyndall  pay  homage  to  the  in- 
tuitive conviction  of  purpose,  intention,  design,  as  seen  in 
the  adaptations  of  Nature:  "Nature  has  proposed  to  her- 
self; "  "  to  this  end  ;  "  "  with  this  prevision  ; "  "atoms 
gifted  with  the  power ; "  "  prodigality  of  relation  and 
adaptation  ;  "  "  for  the  sole  purpose  ;  "  "  Nature  har- 
bored the  intention  ;  "  "  whatever  Nature  meant."  Tyn- 
dall is  a  master  of  language,  whether  as  the  poet  ])ictur- 
ing  the  Alps,  or  as  the  philosopher  analyzing  and  delining 
nature.  In  these  passages  he  is  the  man  of  science  upon 
his  own  ground,  reporting  his  observations  and  experi- 
ments. And  he  tells  us  that  in  two  of  the  most  delicate, 
subtle,  yet  all-pervasive  forces  of  nature,  —  heat  and 
light,  —  he  finds  everywhere  traces  of  intelligence,  since 
only  intelligence  can  harbor  an  intention,  can  have  a 
meaning  or  purpose,  or  act  with  prevision  for  an  end. 

Two  parallel  incidents  in  geology  will  show  that  the 
scientific  mind  intuitively  discriminates  between  nature 
and  intelligence.  (1.)  In  digging  a  well  in  Illinois,  the 
workmen  at  a  depth   of   several   feet   struck  uj)on    the 

^  Tyndall  on  Light,  Lee.  1. 
21 


322  FINAL  CAUSE. 

trunk  of  a  tree,  and  under  this  upon  a  bit  of  copper  ore 
identical  with  that  of  Lake  Superior.  The  inference 
was  that  ages  ago  the  copper  had  been  washed  from  its 
native  bed,  and  lodged  in  the  alluvium  of  the  jNIississippi 
Valley,  —  perhaps  that  the  great  lakes  then  had  an  out- 
let through  the  Mississippi,  —  and  over  this  deposit  a 
forest  had  grown,  which  in  time  was  buried  beneath  the 
ever-accumulating  surface.  The  whole  process  was  as- 
cribed to  natural  causes,  —  the  interest  concentrating  in 
the  question  of  time.  (2.)  In  working  the  copper  mines 
of  Lake  Superior,  the  miner  came  upon  traces  of  excava- 
tion, of  smelting,  of  rude  implements  of  labor  ;  and  the 
immediate  conviction  was,  Man  has  been  here  before  us, 
—  probably  that  unknown  race  who  built  the  mounds  in 
the  jNIississippi  Valley  had  discovered  and  worked  these 
mines.  How  shall  we  account  for  the  diflerence  in  these 
judgments,  —  the  one  pointing  to  nature,  the  other  to 
man  ?  The  judgment  in  each  case  was  spontaneous,  and 
each  judgment  is  accepted  by  science  as  correct.  Tiie 
dividing  line  between  them  is,  that  perceived  adaptation 
to  an  end  betokens  an  intelligent  purpose  directed  to 
that  end.  A  corresponding  instance  is  familiar  to  Eng- 
lish geologists. 

At  a  considerable  depth  in  tlie  delta  of  the  Nile  were 
found  remains  of  pottery.  The  immediate  conviction 
was  that  man  was  on  the  soil  at  the  period  of  this  forma- 
tion. Beyond  question  the  pottery  was  the  work  of  man  ; 
and  the  geological  age  of  the  deposit  would  determine 
how  far  back  man  existed  on  the  borders  of  the  Nile. 
When  it  was  suggested  that  the  pottery  bore  marks  of 
Greek  workmansiiip,  the  inference  was  that  either  by  ac- 
cident it  had  worked  its  way  so  deep,  or  the  Nile  deposit 
had  been  more  rapid  than  is  commonly  supposed.  The 
question  recurs,  how  do  we  make  this  distinction  between 
man  and  nature,  and  the  answer  lies  in  the  one  fact  of 
adaptation  to  an  end. 


TELEOLOGY.  323 

Now,  Professor  Tyndiill  assures  us  that  in  the  single 
fact  of  light  and  vision  "  we  have  prodigality  of  relation 
and  adaj)tation."  From  the  point  of  view  of  physical 
science  he  cannot  look  beyond  the  bounds  of  nature, 
and  hence  he  provides  the  intelligence  which  adaptation 
demands  by  personifying  nature.  I  accept  implicitly 
Tyndall's  testimony  to  the  wondrous  fact ;  and  not  being 
under  the  restriction  which  the  pure  scientist  must  ob- 
serve, I  accept  the  conviction  of  my  own  intelligence 
that  such  intelligence  is  above  nature.  The  principle  of 
teleology  is  thus  attested  by  science  itself  in  its  most 
subtle  and  intricate  investigations.  Indeed,  that  principle 
becomes  more  patent  the  farther  it  is  removed  from  the 
sensuous  into  the  swJ-sensible  world.  There  we  touch 
upon  causes,  first,  mediate,  and  final.  It  does  not  matter 
that  the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  is  often  obscure. 
Could  we  have  looked  upon  our  planet  in  the  carbonifer- 
ous era,  who  could  have  seen  reflected  in  that  murky  at- 
mosphere the  coal-grate  glowing  in  our  dwellings,  the 
furnace  in  our  factories?  We  are  living  in  an  unfinished 
system,  an  era  of  the  evolution  of  phenomena,  and,  as  I 
have  said,  the  development  of  the  ideas  that  lie  at  the 
back  of  phenomena. 

Neither  does  it  disparage  teleology  to  point  to  the 
evil  that  is  in  the  world.  Moral  evil  is  the  product  of 
man's  free  agency.  But  free  will  is  the  highest  endow- 
ment of  a  rational  creature.  The  power  of  moral  choice 
makes  man  akin  to  the  infinite  and  the  absolute ;  and 
moral  evil  is  a  perversion  of  this  most  illustrious  attri- 
bute of  being,  and  the  possibility  of  perversion  lies  in 
the  nature  of  free  will,  and  gives  to  virtue  its  worth  and 
its  glory.  Hence  it  may  be  that  moral,  evil  is  inciden- 
tal, in  respect  of  divine  prevention,  to  the  best  possible 
system. 

As  to  physical  evil,  this  is  but  partial  and  relative. 


324  FINAL  CAUSE. 

Our  own  experience  testifies  that  this  often  serves  to  dis- 
cipline the  intellect  of  man,  to  put  fibre  into  his  will, 
and  train  him  to  noble  and  heroic  action  in  subjugating 
nature  to  the  service  of  the  human  family.  The  very 
doctrine  of  natural  selection  shows  of  how  much  worth 
to  man  is  the  struggle  for  existence  as  a  moral  element 
in  the  development  of  character. 

Here,  too,  comes  in  the  fact  that  the  system  is  un- 
finished. Things  that  seem  untoward  because  unknown 
may  have  a  brighter  end :  "  from  seeming  evil  still  educ- 
ing good." 

Science  is  teaching  this,  especially  in  chemistry,  by 
transforming  what  once  was  feared  as  hurtful  and  hostile 
to  man  into  some  higher  ministry  of  the  beautiful  and 
the  useful,  ordered  by  wisdom  and  beneficence.  What 
serviceable  dyes,  what  exquisite  tints,  are  evolved  from 
the  noisome  refuse  of  coal-tar  ! 

And  just  this  service  should  science  render  if  tele- 
ology is  true.  For  if  there  be  a  Creator,  He  must  be 
spirit,  and  apprehensible  only  by  spirit.  Hence,  the 
more  we  are  developed  in  mind  by  science,  and  the  more 
we  penetrate  through  science  to  the  silent,  impalpable 
forces  of  nature,  the  nearer  shall  we  come  to  Him  who  is 
invisible  ;  till  with  Dante,  emerging  into  the  light  eternal, 
Ve  can  say  :  — 

"  And  now  was  turning  my  desire  and  will, 
Even  as  a  wheel  that  equally  is  moved, 
The  Love  which  moves  the  sun  and  the  other  stars." 


APPENDIX  TO  THE   LAST  ESSAY. 


Since  the  foregoing  paper  was  read,  Professor  Huxley  has  piil> 
lished  a  "  Life  of  Hurae,"  with  an  analysis  of  his  works,  which 
in  its  cheap  and  attractive  form  may  give  a  fresh  impulse  to  the 
popularity  of  the  Scotch  philosopher.  A  review  of  Hume's 
philosophical  system,  as  a  whole,  would  here  be  out  of  place. 
Supposing  Huxley's  synopsis  of  it  to  be  now  at  hand,  I  must  re- 
strict myself  to  the  points  raised  in  my  paper —  Cause,  Power, 
Intuition.  It  is  a  hopeful  sign  that  such  a  master  in  physics  as 
Professor  Huxley  should  invoke  such  a  master  in  metaphysics  as 
Hurae  (just  as  Professor  Tyndall  invokes  Lucretius)  in  support 
of  his  own  teachings ;  that  science,  which  we  have  been  told 
was  the  only  knowledge  —  the  knowledge  of  things  by  observa- 
tion of  the  senses  —  should  have  recourse  to  philosophy  to  sift 
and  classify  phenomena  under  ideas,  in  order  that  they  may 
have  a  place  in  the  category  of  knowledge.  The  necessity  for 
this  I  have  endeavored  to  show  in  the  article,  "  What  is 
Science  ?  "  in  the  "  British  Quarterly  Review  "  for  January, 
1879  ;  and  the  recognition  of  this  dependence  of  science  upon 
philosophy  for  its  own  expression  would  put  an  end  to  much  of 
the  controversy  over  physics  and  metaphysics.  As  to  ideal  spec- 
ulation, Professor  Huxley  goes  quite  far  enough.  On  page  55 
he  says  :  "  All  science  starts  with  hypotheses  —  in  other  words, 
with  assumptions  that  are  unproved,  while  they  may  be,  and 
often  are,  erroneous ;  but  which  are  better  than  nothing  to  the 
seeker  after  order  iu  the  maze  of  phenomena.  And  the  histor- 
ical {progress  of  every  science  depends  on  the  criticism  of  hy- 
potheses, on  the  gradual  stripping  off,  that  is,  of  their  untrue 
or  superfluous  parts,  until  there  remains  only  that  exact  verbal 
expression  of  as  much  as  we  know  of  the  fact,  and  uo  more, 
which  constitutes  a  perfect  scientific  theory." 


826  APPENDIX  TO  THE  LAST    ESSAY. 

This  statement  of  the  way  of  attaining  a  scientific  knowleclge 
of  external  phenomena  raises  two  questions,  which  must  be 
answered  before  we  can  have  any  confidence  in  such  knowl- 
edge. Who  or  what  is  it  which  makes  that  "  criticism  of  hy- 
potheses "  upon  which  "  the  progress  of  every  science  de- 
pends ?  "  And  how  do  we  "  know  a  fact,"  or  who  are  the  Wk 
who  know  a  fact,  so  as  to  reduce  it  to  its  "  exact  verbal  ex- 
pression ?  " 

Professor  Huxley  is  not  quite  satisfied  with  Hume's  negation 
of  mind  ;  that  "  what  we  call  a  mind  is  nothing  but  a  heap  or 
collection  of  different  perceptions,  united  together  by  certain 
relations,  and  supposed,  though  falsely,  to  be  endowed  with  a 
perfect  simplicity  and  identity."  Of  this  view,  Huxley  says  : 
"  He  [Hume]  may  be  right  or  wrong  ;  but  the  most  he,  or  any- 
body else,  can  prove  in  favor  of  his  conclusion  is,  that  we  know 
nothing  more  of  the  mind  than  that  it  is  a  series  of  perceptions." 
Here,  again,  I  ask,  Who  or  what  are  the  We,  who  know  this,  or 
anything  else?  Does  a  mere  ^^ series  of  perceptions,"  each  of 
which  gives  place  in  turn  to  its  successor,  know  itself  as  a  series, 
and  that  this  series  is  all  that  can  be  known  of  mind  ?  Has  a 
series  of  ever-changing,  ever-vanishing  impressions  a  continu- 
ity of  consciousness,  a  power  of  retention  as  memory,  and  of 
discrimination  as  judgment  ?  There  can  be  no  criticism  without 
comparison,  without  remembrance,  without  selection,  without 
discriminating  judgment ;  and  the  question  forces  itself  home  to 
the  school  of  Hume,  If  the  mind  "is  nothing  but  a  heap  or 
collection  of  different  perceptions,"  where  or  what  is  that  faculty 
which  examines  and  compares  these  impressions,  and  which 
reduces  them  to  an  "  exact  verbal  expression  "  as  fact  or  knowl- 
edge? The  truth  is  that  Mr.  Hume  and  Professor  Huxley 
necessarily  assume  a  something  within  man  which,  though  it 
cannot  be  known  "  by  direct  observation,"  yets  knows  itself,  and 
knows  other  things.  The  existence  of  this  something,  which 
we  call  mind,  is  asserted  by  the  consciousness  of  all  mankind 
and  in  the  language  of  every  people.  It  is  proved  by  tlie  con- 
sciousness which  every  man  has  of  personal  identity  and  of 
individuality  ;  by  his  exercise  of  memory  and  of  will ;  and 
above  all  by  his  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  and  his  spontaneous 


APPENDIX  TO   THE  LAST  ESSAY.  327 

emotions  in  view  of  good  or  of  evil.  This  something  knows  it- 
self as  a  cause,  as  a  power,  and  as  possessing  free  will ;  that  is, 
in  all  actions  having  a  moral  quality  it  has  power  to  choose  a 
course  of  action,  and  also  power  to  choose  the  contrary.  What- 
ever the  motive  which  finally  determines  its  choice — say,  if 
you  please,  the  greatest  apparent  good  —  there  is  always  the 
power  of  contrary  choice.  Every  man  knows  these  things  to  be 
true  of  himself.  But  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  pn'<licate 
any  of  these  things  of  a  mere  "  series  of  perceptions."  Though 
the  existence  and  the  properties  of  mind  may  "lie  beyond  the 
reach  of  otjservation,"  —  as  the  terra  observation  is  applied  to 
the  study  of  nature,  —  yet  tlie  existence  of  mind  is  known  in 
consciousness  with  a  certainty  as  absolute  as  that  which  per- 
tains to  the  phenomena  of  nature  observed  and  reported  through 
the  senses.  In  either  case  the  conviction  of  certainty  is  given 
in  the  mind,  or  it  could  not  exist  at  all.  How  can  1  know  any- 
thing if  I  do  not  first  know  the  I  who  knows,  so  far  as  to  have 
full  confidence  in  the  observations  which  /  make,  and  in  the 
judgments  which  1  form  ? 

Now,  there  are  also  truths  which  the  mind  knows  by  intuition, 
of  which  it  is  as  certain  as  of  any  fact  ascertained  by  observa- 
tion, and  indeed  as  certain  as  of  its  own  existence.  Such  truths 
do  not  depend  upon  experience,  but  are  assumed  in  all  ex- 
perience. They  could  not  be  made  a  whit  more  clear  or  certain 
by  reasoning  or  observation  than  they  are  seen  to  be  by  direct 
cognition.  Of  this  class  of  truths  are  the  axioms  of  mathematics. 
Hume  admits  that  there  are  "  necessary  truths,"  but  he  would 
not  class  with  these  the  axiom  of  causation,  "That  whatever 
event  has  a  beginning  must  have  a  cause."  Professor  Hux- 
ley is  more  inclined  to  class  causation  with  necessary  truths, 
and  this  upon  scientific  grounds.  Tims,  on  p.  121,  he  says: 
"  The  scientific  investigator  who  notes  a  new  phenomenon  may 
be  utterly  ignorant  of  its  cause,  but  he  will,  without  hesitation, 
seek  for  that  cause.  If  you  ask  him  why  he  does  so,  he  will 
probably  say  that  it  must  have  had  a  cause ;  and  thereby  imply 
that  his  belief  in  causation  is  a  necessary  belief."  What  is  true 
of  the  man  of  science  is  equally  true  of  the  human  mind  under 
all  possible  conditions.     It  is  an  intuitive  conviction  of  a  neces- 


328  NOTE. 

sary  truth,  that  every  event  must  have  a  cause.  It  is  absolutely 
impossible  for  the  mind  to  conceive  the  contrary.  Let  any  one 
conceive  of  absolute  universal  Nothingness,  and  he  will  find  it 
impossible  to  conceive  of  anything  as  beginning  to  be  !  Hiither, 
then,  we  must  have  recourse  to  the  unphilosophical  conjecture 
of  an  infinite  series,  or  we  must  believe  in  an  eternal  Creator  of 
the  universe. 

In  like  manner,  that  adaptation  points  to  a  purposing  intelli- 
gence is  an  intuitive  cognition  of  the  human  mind.  This  does 
not  arise  from  experience  of  adaptive  power  in  other  men  ;  and 
though  continually  verified  by  experience,  it  does  not  rest  in 
experience  for  its  proof.  Here,  too,  as  above,  it  is  impossible 
for  the  mind  to  conceive  the  contrary. 

Having  already  exposed  the  fallacy  of  Hume  on  this  point, 
and  having  traced  the  notions  of  causation  and  of  power  to 
their  seat  in  the  mind  itself,  I  trust  I  have  opened  anew  the 
way  for  the  evidence  of  God  in  nature,  which  physics  is  more 
and  more  unveiling,  for  metaphysics  to  take  note  of  and  clas- 
sify. 


NOTE. 

The  reader  who  is  interested  in  the  preceding  points  of  meta- 
physical inquiry,  but  who  lacks  facilities  for  studying  German 
philosophy  in  the  original,  can  put  himself  in  communication 
with  two  of  the  greatest  tliinkers  of  Germany,  by  reading  "  A 
Critical  Account  of  the  Philosophy  of  Kant,"  by  Professor  Ed- 
ward Caird,  of  the  University  of  Glasgow  ;  and  "  The  Logic  of 
Hegel,"  by  William  Wallace,  M.  A.,  Fellow  of  Merton  College, 
Oxford.  Kant  was  not  satisfied  with  the  argument  from  de- 
sign, or  as  it  is  better  called,  the  pb^'sico-theological  argument 
for  the  being  of  God ;  and  while  controverting  Hume  on  some 
points,  he  agreed  with  him  that  the  existence  of  order  in  the 
universe  could  at  most  establish  a  finite  cause.  Tliis  point  I 
have  previously  considered.  But  another  form  of  reply  pre- 
sented by  Professor  Caird  is  so  thoughtful  and  suggestive  that 
I  give  the  gist  of  it  here,  referring  the  reader  to  the  full  argu- 
ment in  his  eighteenth  chapter. 


NOTE.  829 

"  Why  do  we  seek  in  tilings,  in  the  world,  and  in  ourselves, 
a  truth,  a  reality,  which  we  do  not  find  in  their  inimwliato  as- 
pect as  phenomena  of  the  sensible  world  ?  It  is  becanse  the 
sensible  world,  as  such,  is  inconsistent  with  it-elf,  and  thus 
points  to  a  higlier  reality.  We  believe  in  the  infinite,  not  be- 
cause of  what  the  finite  is,  but  quite  as  much  because  of  what 
the  finite  is  not ;  and  our  first  idea  of  the  former  is,  therefore, 
simply  that  it  is  the  negation  of  the  latter.  All  religion  springs 
out  of  the  sense  of  the  nothingness,  unreality,  transitoriness  — 
in  other  words,  of  the  essentially  negative  character  of  the  finite 
world.  Yet  this  negative  relation  of  the  mind  to  the  finite  is  at 
the  same  time  its  first  positive  relation  to  the  infinite.  '  We 
are  near  waking  when  we  dream  that  we  dream,'  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  a  limit  is  already  at  least  tiie  germinal  conscious- 
ness of  that  which  is  beyond  it.  The  extreme  of  despair  and 
doubt  can  only  exist  as  the  obverse  of  the  highest  certitude, 
and  is  in  fact  necessary  to  it." 

Hegel,  who  was  fond  of  reducing  every  conception  to  the  last 
possible  analysis,  says,  "  We  must  decidedly  reject  the  mechan- 
ical mode  of  inquiry  when  it  comes  forward  and  arrogates  to  it- 
self the  place  of  rational  cognition  in  general,  an<l  when  it  seeks 
to  get  mechanism  accepted  as  an  absolute  category."  He  then 
shows  how  even  the  argument  from  design  has  been  vitiated  by 
a  mechanical  tone.^ 

"  Generally  speaking,  the  final  cause  is  taken  to  mean  noth- 
ing more  than  external  design.  In  accordance  with  this  view 
of  it,  things  are  supposed  not  to  carry  tiieir  vocation  in  them- 
selves, but  merely  to  be  means  employed  and  spent  in  realizing 
a  purpose  which  lies  outside  of  them.  That  may  be  said  to  be 
the  point  of  view  taken  by  utility,  which  once  played  a  great 
part  even  in  the  sciences.  Of  late,  however,  utility  has  fallen 
into  disrepute,  now  that  people  have  begun  to  see  that  it  failed 
to  give  a  genuine  insight  into  the  nature  of  things.  It  is  true 
that  finite  things  as  finite  ought  in  justice  to  be  viewed  as  non- 
ultimate,  and  as  pointing  beyond  themselves.  Tliis  negativity 
of  finite  things,  however,  is  their  own  dialectic,  and  in  order  to 
ascertain  it  we  must  pay  attention  to  their  positive  content. 

1  Pases  291  and  299. 


330  NOTE. 

"  Teleological  modes  of  investigation  often  proceed  from  a 
well-meant  desire  of  displaying  the  wisdom  of  God,  especially  as 
it  is  revealed  in  nature.  Now  in  thus  trying  to  discover  final 
causes,  for  which  the  things  serve  as  means,  we  must  remember 
that  we  are  stopping  short  at  the  finite,  and  are  liable  to  fall 
into  trifling  reflections.  An  instance  of  such  triviality  is  seen 
when  we  first  of  all  treat  of  the  vine  solely  in  reference  to  the 
well-known  uses  which  it  confers  upon  man,  and  then  proceed 
to  view  the  cork-tree  in  connection  with  the  corks  which  are 
cut  from  its  bark  to  put  into  the  wine-bottles.  AVhole  books 
used  to  be  written  in  this  spirit.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  they 
promoted  the  genuine  interest  neither  of  religion  nor  of  science. 
External  design  stands  immediately  in  front  of  the  idea :  but 
what  thus  stands  on  the  threshold  often  for  that  reason  gives 
the  least  satisfaction." 

The  burden  of  my  paper  is  to  lead  up  through  this  external 
design  to  the  idea  that  lies  behind  it.  And  here  Ilegel  has 
given  food  for  thought  in  his  profound  saying  that  "  Olijectivity 
contains  the  three  forms  of  mechanism,  clieuiism,  and  the  nexus 
of  design."  This  nexus  holds  the  world  and  the  universe  to- 
gether in  our  intuitive  conception. 


INDEX. 


Aborigines,  right  of,  to  the  soil,  110. 
Absolutism  in  Kiirope  in  1815,  3. 
rt'piidiateil  in  Ivirope,  6. 
the  disappearance  of,  in  Europe, 
2. 
Adaptation   proceeding  from   design, 

310. 
Africa,  openinjj  of  to  civilization,  106. 
Atrrariaiiisin  and  coniniunism,  113. 
Alliance,  the  H.-ly,  of  1815,  5,  13. 
America,  cliurdi  indepen<lence  in,  82. 
American   doctiine    regarding   liberty 

and  education,  29. 
American  republic,  the,  influence  of,  as 

a  niodfl,  7. 
Americans    should  recognize   God   in 

their  history,  258. 
Amos,  Professor  Sheldon,  on  interna- 
tional law.  120. 
on  treaties,  131. 
Amphiclyons  religious  union,  the,  223. 
Anarchy  the  enil  of  materialism,  20. 
Andrassy,  Count,  on  the  encyclical,  87. 
Apostles'  Creed,  the,  252. 
Ajjpleton,  C.  Iv,  on  international  copv- 

right,  Ifil. 
Aquinas,  Thomas,  aphorism  In',  204. 
Arabia  territorial  rights  among  tribes 

of,  114. 
Arbitration  a  remedy  for  international 
evils,  147. 
a  remedy  for  standing  armies, 

101. 
between  capital  and  labor,  20. 
classes  of  ca-^es  that   might  be 

settled  by,  101. 
hope  for  |)eace  by,  174. 
in   case   of   crushing  pecuniary 
exactions,  172. 
Aristocracy  in  France,  9. 

of  (iermany  at  Berlin  in  1877, 
10. 
Aribtotle  defines  nature,  240. 

detiues  science,  214. 
Armament,  the,  of  Germany,  93. 
Armies,  standing,  imperil  society,  27. 


Army,  strength  of  the  German,  93. 

the,  a  school  to  boorish  young 

men,  27. 
Arnira,  Count  irenry  Charles  Edward, 

correspondence,  (i9,  83. 

his  controversy  with  Bismarck, 
88. 

recommends  Bismarck  to  meddle 
with  the  Vatican  council,  70. 
Arnold  on  right  in  land,  112.      * 
Artilicer,  the  great,  of  Cowper,  .30G. 
Aspirants  for  place  in  a  democracy,  30. 
Atlases,  historical,  55. 
Atom,  the  conception  of,  bv  Lucretius, 

2f)4. 
Atomic  theory,  the,  2G9. 
Atoms  and  force,  193. 
Augsburg,  peace  of,  5(5. 
Austria,  cost  of  her  army,  98. 

public  instruction  in,  14. 

reconstruction   of,  after   Kiinig- 
griitz,  4. 

supremacy  of,  removed,  66. 
Authors,  protection  of  native,  151.  (See 

Books  and  Cc/ii/rir/lit.) 
Autocracy  of  the  l'<'lii',  73. 

f.s-.  the  I'rtpacy,  7. 
Autocrats  not  pos>il)le  in  Europe,  6. 
Avenarius,  K.,  on  experience,  201. 

on  philosophy,  187. 

Babvlon.  religion  of,  236. 

Badenoch,  Kev.  G.  K.,  33. 

Baerenbach,  Friedrich  von,  on  Darwin, 
307. 

Baggage-master  and  baggage-smasher, 
72. 

Balance  of  power,  3. 

Bashi-Bazouks,  outrages  of,  122. 

Bavaria,  alarmed  bv  the  Vatican  coun- 
cil, 69. 

Beginning  necessitates  a  cause,  327. 

Beginnings  of  things  according  to  Lu- 
cretius, 274. 

Belgium,  King  of,  on  African  civiliza- 
tion, 106. 


332 


INDEX. 


Berlin,  Conpress  of,  of  1878,  4.  174. 
Bible,  the,  confiscated  in  Kiissia,  183. 

creation  personified  in,  306. 
Bishops  as  princes,  55. 

iniprisonnieiit  of,  86. 
Bisinarcic  -  Sclioenliausen,   Karl  Otto, 
I'd  nee  von,   4,    54.     (See   Ca- 

nossa.) 
his  polic}'  regarding  the  bishops, 

68. 
his  quarrel  with  Rome,  48. 
on  iiltraniontanisni,  35. 
prescience  and  intuition  of,  65. 
urges  tiie  consummation  of  Ger- 
man unity,  71. 
Black  Hills,  gold-hunting  among  the, 

115. 
Blacii  Sea,  the  neutralizing  of,  by  the 

treaty  of  Paris,  144,  180. 
Bliint^chli,  John   Cas])ar,  on  interna- 
tional law,  120. 
on  science,  215. 
on  treaties,  133. 
on  war  inclemnify,  169. 
Bolinghroke  on  tiie  demands  of  Queen 

Anne  for  Protestants,  128. 
Boniface  VIII.,  anathemas  of,  47. 

claims  of,  44. 
Books,  compulsory  publication  of,  156. 
Booksellers  oppose  international  copy- 
right, 165. 
Book  trade,  "courtesy  "  in,  161. 
Brahma,  the  eternal,  2-34. 
Brain-work,  pro|)erty  in,  162. 
Bridgewater  Treatises,  basis  of,  301. 
Broca,  M.  P.,  on  the  barbarity  of  war, 

28. 
Brodie,  Professor  B.  C,  269. 
Brutality  in  war,  what  is  it?  105. 
Brvce,  James,   on   llildebrand's  bull, 

39. 
Bulgaria,   brutality  of  the  Turks  in, 
105. 
outrages  in,  121. 
Bundesralh,  the  (Jerman,  11. 
Bunsen,  Christian  Karl  Josias,  on  poly- 
theism, 237. 
Business  retarded  by  army  service,  99. 

Caird,    Edward,   his   "  Philosophy  of 

Kant,"  328. 
Calvo,  Charles,  on  indemnities,  170. 

on  treaties.  133. 

on  usuca|itiou,  110. 
Canos.sa,  BisuiMrck  not  going  to,  37. 

Jl.iiry  IV.  at,  37. 
Cartography,  ecclesiastical,  55. 
Catholicism,  FriMich,  of  to-day   48. 

retrogression  of,  in  the  17th  cen- 
tury. 57. 

superblition  of,  23. 


Catholics,  opportunities  of,  in  Prussia, 

64. 
Causality,  the  true  conception  of,  320. 
Cause  and  effect,  Hume  on,  309. 
Cause,  idea  of  a,  not  imparted  by  phe- 
nomena, 316. 
Cause,  power,  intuition,  325. 
Cause,  the  final,  308. 
Cavour's  nuixim,  "  A  free  church  in 

a  free  state,"  81. 
Centralization  in  the  state,  29. 
Certainty,  mathematical,  213. 
moral,  197. 
rs.  probability,  197. 
Challis,  Professor  iJanies,  on  science, 
214. 
on  the  universe,  266. 
Chamerovzow,  L.  A.,  on  the  New  Zea- 
land (Jnestion,  113. 
Charles  V.  confederate  with  the  pope, 

51. 
China,  opium  trade  in,  117,  118. 
China,  United  States  treaty  with,  120. 
Christ,  the  Church,  and  the  Creed,  247. 
Christian  commerce  wrongs  non-Chris- 
tian pe(»ples,  1 18. 
Christian  nations,  intercourse  of  with 

non-(,'hristian  peoples,  104,  108. 
Christianity  at  a  sfaml-still,  25. 
Christians  and  non  Christian  peoples, 

104. 
Christians   in  Turkey,  call   for  inter- 
vention in  lichiilf  of,  127. 
immunities  ]ik'(l;,'e(l  to,  177. 
Church  the,  and   Civil    Society,   con- 
stant factors,  2. 
discipline    net   to   be   used    for 

political  ends  in  Prussia,  84. 
independence   in   America    and 

Kurope,  82. 
the  supreme  over  all,  theor}-  of, 
74. 
Church  and  State  in  Prussia,  29. 
ojjposed,  01. 

separation  of,  not  wished  in  Prus- 
sia, 81. 
Churches.  f)rivileged,  65. 
Cicero  defines  nature,  241. 
defines  religion,  220. 
on  Chance  as  a  |>ower,  317. 
quoted  on  pro|><Tty,  113. 
Citizen,  the,  Prussian  view  of,  14. 
Civil  power  tril)Utary  to  s[)iritnal,  40. 
Civilization,  necessary  evils  of,  19. 
Classes,  a  division  into,  necessary,  30. 
Clerical  control  in  politics  doomed,  9. 
Coal,  the  use  of,  318,  319. 
Coleridge  on  Shakespeare's   "science 

in  mental  i)hilosophy,"  188. 
Commerce  with  nou-Christiau  peoples, 
109,  115. 


INDEX. 


833 


Commission,  an  international  proposed, 

14!). 
Coiumiinisin  in  France,  dangerous  to 

society,  'il. 
Coniimrative  tlieolo<;y,  221. 
Couite,  Aiiiiiiste,  a  fatal  admission  of, 
221. 
and  Mill,  religion  of,  2li9. 
Conception,  tiie  immaculate,  23. 
Confession  of  faith,  247. 
Coiitiict,  tlie  irrepreMsible,  54. 
Confucius,  religious  system  of,  229. 
Congregational  order,  tlie,  in  America, 

247. 
Congress,  tiie  Geographical,  103. 
Congresses,     international,     tend     to 

peace,  102. 
Conscience,  a  criterion  of  duty,  G2. 
freedom  of,  22. 
its  nature  and  sphere,  77. 
Conscription  in  Germany,  effect  of,  97. 
Constitution,  sense  of  tlie  word,  3. 
Constitutional    government,   rise    and 

growtii  of,  in  Europe,  2,  7. 
Consultation  among  nations  necessary, 

148. 
Contrivance  refers  us  to  mind,  306. 
Convents,  increase  of,  63. 
Cooke,  J.  P.,  on  the  atom,  265. 
Coiiperation,  growth  of,  20. 
Copyright  Association,  the,  164. 
founded  on  justice,  1G3. 
in  Germany,  152,  158. 
in  Great  Britain,  154,  158. 
in  tlie  United  States,  156,  160. 
International,  151. 
principles  of,  in  German}-,  Great 
Britain,  and  the  United  States, 
161. 
riglits  of  alien  authors  to,  166. 
Copyrights  to  foreigners,  158. 
Cortes,  the,  abolished  in  Spain  in  1814, 

4. 
Council,  the  Vatican,  69. 
Courtesy    among    publishers    in    the 

United  States,  161. 
Creation,  histor_v  of,  by  Haeckel,  191. 

personified  in  the  Bible,  306. 
Creator,  argument  for  a,  305. 
Creed,  tlie  Apostles',  247,  252. 
Creed,  the,  only  functional,  250. 

use  of  a,  249. 
Crisis  in  European  society,  22. 
Cumming  scliool  of  prophets,  the,  1. 
Customs,  searches  by  otHcers  of,  119. 
Cj'cle,    the   European  since   the  Con- 
gress of  Vienna,  4. 
Czar,  power  of,  moditied,  5. 

Darwinian  theory,  tlie,  anticipated,  204. 
Dead,  resurrection  of  the,  255. 


Debt,  public,  augmented  to  support  the 

army,  28. 
Defence,  national,  in  Europe,  necessities 

of,  07. 
Delinition,  rules  of,  187. 
Democracies  not  lacking  in  a  love  of 

display,  10. 
Democracy,  pro;rrcss  of,  10. 

the,  of   Europe   trained   by  ex- 
perience, 18. 
Democratic  civilization,  remedy  for  the 

evils  of.  not  found,  31. 
Demon,  tue,  in  (Jreck  religion,  229. 
Denmark,  cost  of  licr  army,  i»9. 
Design-argument,  the,  of'  Patey,  303, 

305. 
Design,  faculty  of,  in  man,  313. 
Despotism  the  aim  of  ultra-montanism, 

25. 
Dictionary,  usefulness  of  tlie,  189. 
Diplomatic  papers,  |)ublication  of,  90. 
Discovery,  premium  to  be  placed  upon, 
119. 
right  of,  110. 
Divine  right  of  kings,  theory  of  the,  6. 
Doubt    inconsistent  with    fcnowledge, 

195. 
Draper,    Jolin    W.,    on    religion    and 

science,  190. 
Drift  of  Europe,  the,  1. 
Du  Bois-Keymoiid,   Emile,   on   atoms 
and  force,  193. 
on  the  indillerence  of  atoms,  286. 

Eastern  Question,  the,  174. 
in  Berlin,  lO. 

position  of  England  on,  176. 
the  treaty  of  Paris  on,  142. 
Ecclesiastical  authority  not  supported 

by  Scripture,  77. 
Ecclesiastical  control,  opposition  to,  7, 8. 
Ecclesiastical  power  in   the  sixteenth 

century,  55. 
Ecclesiasticism,    tyranny  of,  in    Ger- 
many, 25. 
Education  a  care  of  the  state,  13. 
compulsory,  in  Europe,  13. 
in  Austria,  14. 
in  Europe,  16. 

not  the  panacea  for  all  evils,  14. 
Education,   popular,  in   republics  and 
inonarchies,  12. 
marks  the  progress  of  Europe, 
12. 
Ego,  the,  what  is  it  ?  205,  206,  207. 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  severities  of,  towards 

Komanist;?,  45. 
Emerson,  li.   W.,  on  internal  light, 

204. 
Emperor  and  Pope,  conflict  between,  35. 
Emperor,  divine  right  of,  48. 


334 


INDEX. 


Empire,  the  German,  has  no  religion, 

C8. 
EncvcIopwdist<i.  infidelity  of  the,  24. 
England  and  her  rclatiuus  to  the  pa- 
pacy, 45. 
England's  sympathy  with  Germany, 

33. 
Episcopal  Church,  the,  253. 
Equality,  social  and  legal,  compared,  18. 
Etliics  superior  to  cu.-^toin,  135. 
Europe  averse  to  war,  ]47. 

beyond  the  drifting  period,  21. 
Christian  and  social,  drift  of,  1. 
evidence  i>f  advance  in,  2. 
not  tending  to  republicanism,  6. 
term  dclined,  1. 
two  constant  factors  in,  2. 
European  society  far  from  sound,  22. 
in  peril  from  the  military  sys- 
tem, 27. 
Evangelical  Church,  the,  in  Prussia,  05. 
Evil,  moral,  the  product  of  free  agencj', 
3-23. 
problem    of,     not    solved     by 
science,  21»2. 
Evils  of  democratic  civilization,  rem- 
edies for,  not  found,  31. 
Evolutionists,  iulidelity  of  a  school  of, 

24. 
Excommunication  of  Frederic  II.,  41, 

42. 
Exhibitions,  international,  103. 
Experience,  the  ap))eal  to,  311. 

the  training  of,  in  Europe,  18. 

Faith,  confession  of,  218. 
necessary,  272. 

and  science  as  distinguished  by 
Ilaeckel,  1!)1. 
Favoritism,     ecclesiastical,      weakens 

loyalty,  80. 
Feelings',  the,   outside  the  domain  of 

science,  2i(l. 
Fetichism  of  Africa,  237. 
Field,  D.  D.,  delines  the  word  Nation, 

53. 
Fiore,  delines  the  word  Nation,  53. 
Fittest,  survival  of  the,  2'J7. 
Force  and  atoms,  1U3. 

cause  in  action,  316. 
universal,    points    to    universal 
cause,  31<). 
Foreigners,  copyrights  to,  158. 
Forster,  Wilhelm,  on  astronomy,  192, 

]'J3. 
France  and  Spain,  national  life  in,  53. 
France,  cost  of  her  army,  08. 
humiliation  of,  12. 
revolutions  of,  4. 
Frederic  II.,  excommunication  of,  40, 
42. 


Frederic  III.,  barters  away  his  prerog- 
ative, 4!). 

Frederick  William  III.,  of  Prussia,13. 

Freedom  of  conscience  and  mind,  22. 

P'reedom,  religious,  to  be  demanded, 
184. 

Freeman,  E.  A.,  on  Teutonic  freedom, 
82. 

Fulda,  assembly  of  bishops  at,  69. 

Galileo  anticipated  In-  Lucretius,  263. 
his  doctrines  ))reached  in  Home, 
23. 
Geology,  reasoning  from,  321. 
German    empire,  the  Catholic   Union 

on,  86. 
Germans,  the,  capacity  for  self-govern- 
ment of,  9(i. 
not  a  belligerent  nation,  95. 
Germany,  armament  of,  1(2. 

IJismarck's  devotion  to,  66. 
copyright  in,  151,  158. 
ecclesiastical  conllict  in,  40. 
her  needs  for  defense,  97. 
incited  to  insurrection  bv  Greg- 
ory IX.,  41. 
political  Ireedom  in,  82. 
progress  under  law  in,  18. 
proud  of  her  army,  lOO. 
resources  drained  bv  her  army, 

08. 
the  arbiter  of  Europe,  14. 
Gladstone,  W.  K.,  33. 

on  the  Vatican  decrees,  81. 
God,  belief  in  a  iier>onal,  238. 

in  American  history,  258. 
Goethe  on  the  elective  principle,  270. 
Golden  IJule,  the,  anticipated,  231. 
Gospel,   the,   of  Christ,    necessary  to 

European  liberty,  20. 
Government  a  living  power  under  Bis- 
nnirck,  71. 
blamed  for  all  evils,  31. 
Governments,  rise  of  const  it  ntional,  2. 
Gratitude,  the  sentiment  of,  2HI. 
Great  Itritain,  copyright  in,  154,  159. 

cost  of  her  army,  99. 
Greece,  republics  of,  cause  of  their  re- 
trogression, 21. 
Greeks,  religion  of,  227,  228. 
Gregory  Vll.,  bull  of,  excommunicat- 
ing llenry    IV.,    30.      (^ee    JllUe- 
hrand. ) 
Gregory   IX.,   conflict    with    Frederic 

II.,  40,  41,  42. 
Grotius,  father  of  modern  international 

law,  107. 
Guizot,   M.,  advocates  public  schools, 

17. 
Gymnasium,  the  Prussian,  as  a  training 
for  the  clergy,  84. 


INDEX. 


835 


Haeckel,  Ernest,  audacity  of  assertion 
of,  212. 
his  "History  of  Creation,"  191. 
on   moral  and    scieulitic  mato- 
rialisni,  284. 
Halleck  on  conquest,  172. 
Hamlet,   the   idea  of,  not  to  be  em- 
bodied, 201. 
Hatti'  Uumaloim,  tlie,  177. 
Heathens   no   longer  proper  spoil  for 

Christians,  110. 
Heffter,  August  Wilhelm,  on  treaties, 
l.i2,  l;J5. 
on  war  indemnity,  169. 
Hegel  defines  philosoiiliy,  210. 

on  the  mechanical  mode  of  in- 
quiry, 329. 
on  the  nexus  of  design,  330. 
on  self-consciousness,  205. 
Henry  IV.,  excommunication  of,  36, 

38. 
Henry  VI.,   of  France,   bows  to  the 

I'ope,  59. 
Henry  VHI.,  ecclesiastical  quarrels  of, 

45. 
Hero-worship,  243. 

Hierarchy,  tlie  Roman,  in  Prussia,  83. 

Hildebrand,  ground  of  his  act  towards 

Henry  IV.,  39. 

humbles  Henry  IV.,   37.     (See 

Gre(/ory  Vll.) 

Hohenlohe,  Cardinal,  not  received  by 

the  Pope,  37. 
Hohenlohe,  Prince,  on  the  attitude  of 
Bismarck  towards  the  Roman  Church, 
90. 
Holy  Alliance,   the,   invalid    in    one 

point,  139. 
Honor,  meaning  of,  189. 

must  be  sacred  between  nations, 
180. 
Hope  impossible  to  an  equation  of  ele- 
ments, 26. 
not  found  in  the  system  of  Lu- 
cretius, 294. 
Hossbach  case,  the,  in  Prussia,  247. 
Huber,  D.  J.,  62. 
Humanism,  243. 

Humauitv  in  dealings  with  non-Chris- 
tian peoi)ifs,  109,  120. 
scorned  by  Lucretius,  288. 
HumbokU  delines  science,  215,  216. 
Hume,  fallacies  of,  300,  313. 
Huxley's  life  of,  325. 
on  cause  and  eti'ect,  309. 
progress  of  his  ideas,  302. 
Hume's    appeal    to  experience    falla- 
cious, 311. 
Hume's  philosophical  system,  synopsis 

of,  325. 
Huxley's  life  of  Hume,  325. 


Ideal,  the  American,  2*2. 
Ideas,  oricin  of.  315. 

pro|H;rty  in,  162. 
Imagination  advance!)  science,  314. 
Indcmnitv,  arbitration  in  caiio  of  cruel, 
172. 

justilication  of,  168. 

right  of  an    uggresssive   power 
to,  171. 

war,  right  of,  168. 
India,  religion  of,  232. 
Indians,  cruelty  towards,  104. 

riglit  of  to  the  land  over  which 
they  roamed.  111. 
IndifTercnti.Hin  in  Germany,  25. 

in  Protestant  Christianity,  24. 
Individual,  crushing  the,  to  elevate  the 

masses,  29. 
Individuals,  repression  of,  29,  30. 
Induction  evolved  by  Lucretius,  270. 
Indulgences,  sale  of,  49. 
Industrial  development,  20. 

progress,  19. 
Industry,    damaged    by  the  German 

military  system,  93. 
Infallibility,  papal,  8. 

doctrine  of,  45,  52. 

Pressense  on,  47. 
Infidelity,  the,  of  the  18th  century,  23. 
Ingratitude,  baseness  of,  281. 
Inhumanity  tends  to  barbarism,  121. 
Injustice   cannot    be    made  valid    by 

t'-eaty,  138. 
Innocent  111.,  audacity  of,  39. 
Innocent  IV.,  deposes  Frederic  II.  43. 
Intellectual  freedom  in  Prussia,  82. 
Intelligence  indicated   by  adaptation, 
314,  321. 

popular,  progress  of,  12, 
Interference,  right  of,  124. 
International  cipyriglit,  151. 

Association,  the,  164. 

faith  re(iuired,  147. 

faith,  steps  towards,  148. 

law,  107. 
Intolerance  of  Russia,  181. 

in  Turkey,  181. 
Intuition  of  mind,  an,  315. 
Invention,  never  produced  by  Xature, 

306. 
Itah',  cost  of  her  army,  98. 

education  in,  17. 

the  old  and  the  new,  as  described 
by  Taiiie,  20. 

uniticat'on  of,  4. 

unity  of,  11,  52,  68. 

Jesuits  and  infallibility,  48. 

claims  of,  52. 

in  Germany,  46. 
Jesuitism  opposes  Protestantism,  61. 


836 


INDEX, 


Jesuitism  triumphing  at  Rome,  68. 
Jevoua,  \V.  S.,  on  certajiit.v,  207. 

on  plieiionieiia,  245. 
Jews,  disabilities  of,  64. 
John,  accepted  as  vassal  of  the  Pope, 

40. 
Johnson,  Samuel,  on  policv  and  moral- 
ity, 131. 
Justice,  .xense  of,  growing  in   power, 
145. 
the  supreme  duty  of  mankind, 
125. 

KaDt,  Emanuel,  triviality  of,  330. 

on  the  Kgo,  204. 

on  niathemntics  in  science,  193. 
Ktnntnifs  and  trktnntniss,  198. 
Kent,  Chancellor,  on  treaties,  134. 
Kingship  and  priestisni,  35. 

subordinate  to  the  Church,  40. 
Knowledge  the  conviction  of  certainty, 
195. 

the  diffusion  of,  not  abridged  by 
copyright,  lt!5. 

how  acquired,  196. 
Koniggrtifz,  effect  of  the  disaster  of, 
IG. 

triumph  of,  07,  71. 

Labor,   manual,  decreases  as  thinking 
increases,  20. 
subdivision  of,  30. 
and  trade,  laws  of,  18. 
Lactantius  on  tlie   derivation  of  the 

word  Ueligion,  226. 
Law,    International,   general    commu- 
nity of,  108. 
Law,  majesty  of,  exemplified,  115. 
Law  of  nations,  what  it  requires,  147. 
Lecky's  view  of  religion,  223. 
Lectures,  a  course  of,  indicated,  257. 
Legitimacy  declared   the  salvation  of 

Europe,  5. 
Liberty    endangered    by    a    standing 

anny,  27,  28. 
Liberty,  religious,  riglit  to  uphold,  33. 

unproseiyting,  G2. 
Licfland,  persecution  in,  182. 
Life,  an  assumption  regarding,  308. 

motives  for  a  liappy,  presented 

by  Lucretius,  291. 
origin  of,  according  to  Lucretius, 
270. 
Light  and  the  eye,  Tyndall  on,  320. 
Lotze,  Hermann,  on  the  Ego,  206. 
Lourdes,  pilgrimages  to,  23. 
Lucretius  or  Paul?  2.j7. 
Lucretius,  philosophy  of,  262. 
suicide  of,  294. 
traits  of,  2tJl. 
Luther,  Martin,  theses  of,  50. 


Luther,  his  protesting  conscience,  78. 
Lutherans  cajoled,  182. 

Machinery,  effect  of  the  introduction 
of,  19. 
influence  of,  20. 
Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  on  interven- 
tion, 129. 
Man,  antiijuity  of,  322. 

the   centre  about  which  church 

and  state  revciive,  75. 
the  nature  of,  283. 
for  the  state,  theory  of,  75. 
traits  of,  2G0. 
Manning,  Cardinal,   on  papal   power, 
73,  74. 
on  ])apal  restrictions,  85. 
Materialism,  method  of,  2(j9. 

would  explode  society,  26. 
Mathematifal  certainty,  21.3. 
Mathematician,  habits  of  the,  203. 
Matliematics  and  science,  202. 
Matter  imperishable  accordmg  to  Lu- 
cretius, 274. 
Mazzini,  Joseph,  on  materialism,  295. 
Meclu)nical  theory,  the,  308. 
Mediation  guarantied  by  the  treaty  of 

Paris,  181. 
Mcnzel,  Wolfgang,  02,  71. 
Alethodism  and  mysticism  follow  skep- 
ticism, 24. 
Mildmay,    Sir  Walter,  on  Jesuits  in 

Germany,  40. 
Military  service  a  detriment  to  young 

men,  99. 
Military  system,  the,  of  Europe,  27. 
Mill,  E".  J",  209. 
Mill,  J.   S.,   irreligious  education  of, 

224. 
Mill  and  Comte,  religion  of,  239. 
Mind,  freedom  of  the,  22. 

existence   of,    asserted   by  con- 
sciousness, 320. 
human,  must   be   the  agent  to 
compute  the  Universal  mind, 
312. 
must  record  experience,  312. 
Miraculous,  the,  rejected  by  material- 
ism, 292. 
Missionaries,  Protestant,  in  Turkey,  on 

religious  liberty,  128. 
Mominsen,    Theodor,    on   Roman    re- 
ligion, 227. 
Monism,  the,  of  Von  liaercmbacb,  307. 
Moral  certainty,  197. 
Moral  forces,  j)ower  of,  34. 
Mulford,  Elisha,  delines  the  word  Na- 
tion, 64. 
Miiller,  Max,  on  science  and  religion, 

219. 
Myths,  the  perpetuity  of,  208. 


INDEX. 


337 


Niigeli,  Professor  C.  von,  212. 
Kapoleon,  mercenary  use  of  war  by, 
170. 
on  the  laws  of  war,  105. 
Nation,  dcfinetl,  53,  5-t. 
Kational  autunoiny  must  be  effected, 
72. 
spirit  in  France,  12. 
unity,  drift  towards,  11. 
Kationulisni  realized  in  tlie  empire  of 
Germany  and  the  kingdom  of  Italy, 
3G. 
Nationality  established    in  Germany, 
67. 
growth  of  the  idea  of,  52,  65. 
and  paparciiy,  struggle  between, 

87. 
rise  of,  in  Europe,  12. 
Nations,  solidarity  of  the,  120. 
Nature  detined,  240. 

interpretations  of,  307. 
the  Latin  view  of,  241. 
sponianeous  work  of,  according 

to  Lucretius,  276. 
worship  of,  242. 
Nepotism  at  Kome,  49. 
Netherlands,  cost  of  its  army,  99. 
Neutrals,    rules    by    which    they    are 

bound,  137. 
New  Zealand  Question,  the,  113. 
Ne.xus,  the,  of  design,  330. 
Nobility  cheapened  in  Spain.  10. 
Nootka  Sound,  contest  for,  112. 
Norway,  cost  of  her  army,  99. 
Nothingness  inconsistent  with  a  begin- 
ning, 328. 

Occupation  a  presumptive  right  to  soil, 
110. 
to  be  valid  must  be  serviceable, 

113. 
what  is  it  ?  111. 
Opium  trade  in  China,  117,  118. 
Oiders,  the  privileged,  decline  of,  9. 
Over-production,  evils  of,  21. 

Palestine,  schools  of,  261. 
Paley,  his  design-argument,  317. 

the  failure  of,  300. 

objections  to,  303. 

views  of.  restated,  305. 
Panagurishta,  outrages  at,  122. 
Papacy,  the  elainjs  of,  44. 

growth  of  the  power  of,  44. 

influence  of,  7,  8. 

opposed  to  modern  society,  68. 

a  political  power,  36. 

power  of,  not  compatible   with 
the  welfare  of  the  nations,  41. 

pretensions  of,  8. 
Papal  infallibility,  25. 

22 


Papal  supremacy  auerted,  59. 
Paparciiy  and  nationality,  33. 

the,  opposed  by  i'russia,  80. 
Papers,  diplomatic,  publication  of,  90. 
Paradise    not    created    by    individual 

freedom,  29. 
Paris,  treaty  of.  character  of.  142,  146. 

violated  by  Hussia,  179. 
Parliament,  the  German,  duration  of, 
94. 
influence  of  a,  9. 
influence  of,  in  Germany,  10. 
suggestion  ifor  an  international, 
131. 
Parties,  strife  of,  in  America,  7. 
Patriotism  not  appropriate  to  material- 
ists, 286. 
Patriots,  European,  4. 
Paul,  character  of,  261. 
death  of,  295. 
doctrines  of,  289. 
theism  of,  278. 
Paul  V.  asserts  the  power  of  the  keys, 

60. 
Peace  insured  by  a  large  army,  98. 

of  the  world,  right  of  the  powers 
to  preserve,  125. 
Peasantry,  effect  of  military  life  on,  99. 
Pellico,  Silvio,  5. 

Penn,  William,  and  the  Indians,  112. 
People,  the  cause  of  the,  18. 

enlightenment  of,  demanded,  16. 
growing  influence  of,  8. 
rights  and  liberties  of,  33. 
their  interest  in  government  in 
Sweden  in  1815,  4. 
Peoples  above  parties,  9. 
Persecution,  interference  against,  130. 

religious,  in  Russia,  182. 
Personality,  207. 

Persons,  questions  regarding,  to  be  set- 
tled by  arbitration,  102. 
Philanthropy  incompatible  with  a  ma- 
terialistic theory,  287. 
Philip  the  Fair,  of  France,  46. 
Phillimore  on  the  nature  of  treaties, 
137. 
on  occupation,  111. 
Philosophic  vs.  scientific  thought,  24. 
Philosophy,  detined  by  Hegel,  210? 
is  it  a  science  ?  187. 
and  .science,  195. 
the  highest  of  sciences,  217. 
Pilgrim  P'athers,  practice  of  the,  250. 
Piracy  suppressed  by  the  United  States, 

126". 
Pirates  under  the  laws  of  nations,  121. 
Pius  IX.  follows  the  example  of  Greg- 
ory IX.,  41. 
bis  antagonism  to  modern  soci- 
ety, 8. 


338 


INDEX. 


Plebiscitum,  the,  of  Napoleon,  26. 
Police  of  the  world,  how  far  to  be  con- 
ducted by  Christian  nations,  109, 124. 
Political  economy,  science  of,  20. 
Politics,  clerical  control  in,  doomed,  9. 
Polytheism  based  on  monotheism,  237. 
Pope,  the,  claims  of  to  all  the  baptized, 
35. 
and  Kaiser,  rivals,  49. 
interference  of  the,  in  affairs  of 

state,  35. 
overthrow  of  the  temporal  power 

of,  4. 
power  of,  in  the  church  of  Rome, 

73. 
result  of   the  abolition  of    his 

temporal  power,  7. 
universal  sovereignty  of,  34,  37. 
Positive  philosophy,  221. 
Positiveism,  239. 
Potterv,  ancient,  322. 
Pottha'ust,  Dr.  A.,  41. 
Power,   civil  and    ecclesiastical,  con- 
trasted, 79. 
civil,  tributary  to  spiritual,  40. 
ecclesiastical  in  the  IGth    cen- 
tury, 55. 
spiritual,  centralization  of,  39. 
Prerogative,  decline  of,  9. 
Press,  limitations  on,  in  papal  lands, 

15. 
Pressens^,  E.  de,  33,  62. 

on  papal  infallibility,  47. 
Prevision,  the,  of  Nature,  319. 
Priests  and  politics  in  Italy,  8. 
Princes,  lay  tigures,  10. 

league  of,  iu  the  time  of  Luther, 

10. 
scarcity  of,  in  Germany,  9. 
their  ornamental  nature,  10. 
Principles  formulated  in  treaties,  136. 
Progress,  material,  benetits  of,  19. 

political,  in  Europe  from  1815 
to  1878,  4. 
Property  in  brain-work,  162. 
Protestantism  allies  itself  with  princes, 
50,  51. 
progress  of,  55,  63. 
repulsed,  68. 
Providence,  Hume  on,  313. 
Prussia,  Church  and  State  in,  85. 
ecclesiastical  law  in,  83. 
intellectual  and  theological  free- 
dom in,  82. 
the  leader  of  Germany,  14. 
opposed  to  the  paparchy,  80. 
position  of,  06. 
schools  in,  13,  14. 
true  to  the  pact  of  Westphalia, 

04. 
upholding  religious  liberty,  33. 


Public  worship  bill,  the  English,  85. 

Publication,  compulsory,  166. 

Publishers,  courtesy  among,  101. 

Puritans,  moderation  of,  in  New  Eng- 
land, 112. 

Purpose,  an  intelligent,  behind  phe- 
nomena, 305. 

Quantics  defined,  203. 

Ranke,  History  of  the  Popes  quoted, 

52,  56,  57,  58. 
Reaction  from  the  Reformation,  51. 
Reading,  the  power  of,  for  good,  15. 
Reason  in  matters  of  faith,  62. 

and  the  New  Testament,  78. 
Redemption  not  known  to  materialism, 

291. 
Reformation,  the,  49,  50. 

gives  kaiser  and  pope  a  shock, 

49. 
progress  of,  56. 
the  reaction  from,  51. 
secured  bv  a  league  of  princes, 
10. 
Reichstag,  the  German,  11. 
Religion  defined,  245. 

derivation  of  the  term,  226. 
interference  with   that  of  non- 
Christian   peoples,    109,    120, 
129. 
reality  of,  223. 

right  to  demand  freedom  of,  129. 
and  science,  struggle  over,  183. 
a  science,  218. 
source  of,  329. 
views  of,  223. 
what  is  it?  219,  226. 
Religious  freedom    to   be  demanded, 

185. 
Religious  idea,  the,  constancy  of,  245. 
Republicanism  not  progressing  iu  Eu- 
rope, 6. 
Resurrection,  doctrine  of  the,  253,  254. 
Resurrection  of  the  flesh,  253. 
Revolution,   the  French,   a  result  of, 

47. 
Rhense,  diet  of,  in  1338,  48. 
Rig  Veda,  the,  233,  234. 
Rights  of  man  not  to  be  abrogated  by 

treaty,  139. 
Rivalries  among  princes,  11. 
Robinson  Crusoe's  footprint,  311. 
Rome,  Church  of,  its  aggressive  policy, 
55. 
not  to  be  inquired  of  at  every 
step,  73. 
Rome  and  Kussia,  parallel  between,  50. 
Kussell,  Earl,  letter  to,  41. 
Russia,    compulsory    attendance    on 
schools,  17. 


INDEX. 


839 


Russia,  cost  of  her  army,  98. 
etlucatinn  in,  10.' 
nioditication  of  the  power  of  the 

Czar  of,  5. 
more  Asiatic  than  European,  3. 
shall  ISnKland  side  withV  175, 185. 
violates  the  treaty  of  I'aris,  178. 

Savages,    right  of  Christian  nations 

a^'ainst,  114. 
Savigny,   Friedrich  Karl  von,  on  the 

paramount  nature  of  right,  125. 
Sayte,  Professor  A.  H.,  ou  Babylonian 

religion,  236. 
Schism,  the  great,  49. 
Schools,  public,  in  Europe,  13. 
Schuyler,  Eugene,  on  the  Turkish  out- 
rages in  Bulgaria,  122. 
Science    advanced     by     imagination 
rather  than  by  "experience,  314. 
contents  of  the  term,  209. 
defined  by  Aristotle,  215. 
definition  of,  218. 
generation  of,  199. 
in  the  remote  jjast,  299. 
looks  forward,  314. 
modern,  anticipated  bv  Lucre- 
tius, 263,  264,  267. 
and  religion,  struggle  over,  186. 
what  is  ity   186,  210. 
the  work  of,  324. 
Sciences,  their  influence,  21. 
Secchi,  teaching  the  doctrines  of  Gal- 
ileo, 23. 
Sectarianism  not  to  be  supported  by 

treaty,  139. 
Sects    slightly  encouraged  to  propa- 
gandism,  24. 
no  right  to  interfere  in  behalf 
of,  130. 
Seen  and  unseen,  relations  of  the,  271. 
Self-consciousness,  205. 
Sense  refuted  by  reason,  272. 
Senses,    the,   cannot  account  for  man 
and  the  universe,  273. 
cannot  be  refuted,  according  to 

Lucretius,  275. 
not  the  final  judge  upon  truth, 
272. 
Servia,  intervention  in,  143. 

violates  the  treaty  of  Paris,  179. 
Serviceable  occupation,  113. 
Shakespeare  on  conscience,  78. 
quoted,  86,  87. 

and  Dante  on  ingratitude,  281. 
his  science  in  mental  philosophy, 
188. 
Signs  of  the  Times  (1877),  1. 
Skepticism  the  reaction  from  supersti- 
tion, 23. 
vs.  inquiry,  23. 


Slavery,  abolition  of,  20. 
Slave-trade,  movement  against,  121. 
Social  amelioration,  20. 
Socialism  in  Germany,  dangers  of,  32. 
repression   of,  by  government, 
31. 
Society  in  Euro])e  far  from  sound,  22. 
a  fundamental  law  of,  .30. 
conflicting  theories  of,  74,  75. 
dependent  upon  responsibility, 

26. 
secularization  of,  47. 
the  reconstruction  of,  slow,  18. 
Soldier's  calling,  the,  the  mark  of  na- 
tional unity,  12. 
Solidarity,  the,  of  members  of  modern 
society,  34. 
of  nations,  120. 
Somme,   shaped    flint  stones  in  the, 

3U. 
Soul,  fate  of,  according  to  Lucretius, 

276. 
Soul-rights,  struggle  for,  49,  50. 
South,  Kobert,  on  ingratitude,  282. 
Sovereignty  inherent  in  a  nation,  54. 
Scriptural  doctrine  of,  76. 
of  the  state,  79. 

titles  of,  in  Germanv  in  1815, 
11. 
Spain  and  France,  nationaf  life  in,  53. 
Spain,  vicissitudes  of,  4. 
Speculation,  Huxley  on,  325. 
Spencer,   Herbert,    on    the    home    of 

science,  199. 
Spinoza,  on  the  method  of  self-con- 
sciousness, 204. 
State  and  Church  opposed,  61. 
State,  so%'ereignty  of,  75,  79. 
Stephen,  Leslie,  on  Hume  and  Palev, 

300. 
Stewart,  Balfour,  on  force  and  sound, 

193,  194. 
Suffrage,  limited  in  France  in  1814,  3. 

in  Prussia,  14. 
Superintendence  of  labor,  .30. 
Superstition,  growth  of,  23. 
Supremacv  of  the  Pope,  39. 
Survival  of  the  fittest,  297. 
Sweden,  cost  of  her  army,  99. 
Svllabus,  the,  of  the  Vatican  Council, 

"45. 
Svlvester,  Professor,  defines  quantics, 
"203. 

Taine,  Henri,  on  Italv,  old  and  new, 
20. 
on  the  magnitude  of  states,  30. 
Teachers  of  religion,  normal  influence 

of,  9. 
Teleology  not  a  Christian  invention, 
317. 


340 


INDEX. 


Teleolopy,  remarks  on,  307. 
Territory,   acquisition    of    from    non- 
Ciiristian  people?,  109. 
disputes  concern  ill};,  to  be  settled 
by  arbitration,  102. 
Thanksgiving,  reasons  for,  in  America, 
258. 
a  superstition  to  the  materialist, 
280. 
Theism  or  materialism  the  issue,  259. 

the,  of  Paul,  279. 
Theistic  idea,  plasticity  of,  296. 
Theology,  comparative,  221. 

how  much  a  war  of  words,  189. 
Thomson,  Archbishop,  on  rules  of  def- 
inition, 187. 
Thomson,  Sir  William,  his  reference  to 

Lucretius,  2(J8. 
Thought,   the,  of  the  Infinite  Mind, 
307. 
stagnation  of,    in  the  Catholic 
Church,  15. 
Tiepolo,  Paolo,  reports  rumors  about 

Home,  57. 
Tillman,  S.  D.,  269. 
Tischendorf  protests  against  persecu- 
tion, 183. 
Titles  of  sovereignty  in  Germany,  in 

1815,  11. 
Tocqueville,   Alexis  de,   tendency    of 

political  philosophy  of,  25. 
Trade  and  labor,  laws  of,  18. 
Traffic,  if  corrupting,  to   be  discoun- 
tenanced, 117. 
Treaties  as  parts  of  the  laws  of  nations, 
1.32. 
cannot  be  annulled  by  one  party 

alone,  145. 
contracts,  136. 
inviolability  of,  173. 
may    not    have  secret   clauses 
nullifying    open    professions, 
139. 
the  jwsitive  value  of,  140. 
should  be  codified.  148. 
should  be  inviolable,  141. 
Treaty  obligation,  state  of,  142. 

'of  Paris  violated,  178,  179. 
Trendelenburg,    Professor     Friedrich 

Adolf,  belief  of,  222. 
Troglodytes  not  so  barbarous  as  war- 
ring men,  28. 
Truth  and  light,  2.52. 

sought  by  scientists,  225. 
what  is  it,  225. 
Turkey,   abhorrence  of,   in  England, 

breach  of  faith  by,  176. 
broken  pledges  of,  123,  178. 
pledges  immunities  to  Christian 
subjects,  177. 


Turkey,  its  position  among  nations  ac- 
cording to  the  treaty  of  Paris, 
14.3. 
schools  in,  16. 
Turner,  F.  S.,  on  the  British  opium 

policy,  117,  118. 
Twiss,  Sir  Travers,  on  Africa  and  the 

slave  states,  108. 
Tyndall,  John,  his  limits  of  knowl- 
edge, 298. 
on  purpose  in  Nature,  321. 
on  the  religions  sentiment,  194. 
teleology  of,  318. 
TjTanny  of  ecclesiastical  power,  79. 

Ultramontanism  in  France,  47. 
opposed  to  liberty,  33, 
the  struggle  with,  10. 
Ultramontanists   opposed    to  German 

nationality,  63. 
Union,  the  German,  67. 
Union  bv  strength,  66. 
United  States  behind  Europe  in  pop- 
ular education,  13. 
copyright  in,  156,  100. 
influence  of  the,  in  Europe,  6. 
influence  of   religious  teachers 

in,  9. 
interested    in   the  ecclesiastical 

conflict  in  Germany,  34. 
as   a   Nation,  the,    lectures  on, 

267. 
position  of,  in  the  progress  of 

liberty,  32. 
possible'  religious    struggle    in, 

82. 
right  of,  to  Indian  lands.  111. 
Unity,  the,  of  Germany,  11. 
■  of  Italy,  11. 
national,  drift  towards,  11. 
of  the  spiritual  essence  in  Indian 
religion,  233. 
Universe,  the,  cannot  be  accounted  for 
by  the  senses,  273. 
scheme  of    the,   according    to 

Paul,  277. 
two  systems  of  the,  279. 
Unknown  god,  the,  279. 
Unscientific  reasoning,  273.   . 
Usucaption,  Calvo  on,  110. 
Utility  fallen  into  disrepute,  329. 

Vatican  decrees,  Gladstone  on  the,  81. 

Vattel  on  occupation,  111. 

Vedas,  religion  of  the,  232. 

Victor  Emmanuel,  government  of,  19. 

and  the  people,  8. 
Vienna,  Congress  of  (1815).  3.  11. 
Virchow,  Professor  K.,  212.  214. 
Vitalism  not  accounted  for  by  mech- 
anism, 308. 


INDEX. 


341 


"Von,"  cheapness  of  the  German  ti- 
tle, 9. 

Wallace,  William,  his  "Philosophy  of 

Hegel,"  328. 
War,  aggressive,  how  to  be  justified, 
172. 
changed  character  of,  12. 
danger  that  it  mav   become  a 

commercial  speculation,  170. 
for  conquest,   ambition,   or  re- 
venge, not  to  be  sanctioned 
172. 
indemnity,  right  of,  168. 
its  province,  148,  149. 
mercenary  use  of,  by  Napoleon, 

170. 
party  not  known  in  Grermany, 

100. 
readiness  of  Germany  for,  95. 
temptation  to,  from  a  standing 
army,  98. 
Wars  and  commotions  of  1877,  1. 
Washington  recognized  God  in  Am«r- 
ican  history,  258. 


Watches,  arguments  from,  310. 
Webster,    Noah,   on  rights  in  brain- 

work,  162. 
Westplialia,  peace  of,  50,  61,  60,  64. 
Wheaton  on  the   right  to  use  force, 

116. 
Whewell  defines  science,  210. 
William,  Emperor,  his  correspondence 

With  the  Pope,  41. 
Woman,  her  right  to  labor,  teach,  and 

talk,  22. 
Words,  meanings  of,  189. 

wars  of,  189. 
Workingman,  advantages  of  the  mod- 
ern, 20. 
opportunity  of,  19. 
Workingmen,  influence    of    reading 

upon,  15. 
Worship,  freedom  of,  6.1. 
Wrong  cannot  be  sanctioned  by  treaty, 

138. 

Zeller,  Dr.  E.,  of  Berlin,  on  interpre- 
tations of  nature,  307. 
on  science,  216. 


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